tl|f  SItbrarg  of 
Prinrrtnn  Sli^nlogtral  g^^mtnaru 

BR  125  .P4  1902   ,    ^^^^ 
Peck,  George  Clarke,  1865- 

mgd       1927. 

"  ^^    Ringing  questions  ' 


RINGING 
QUESTIONS 


George   Clarhe    PecK 

AutHor  of  "Bible  Tragedies" 


New  YorK:    Eaton  &  Mains 
Cincinnati:  Jennings  &  Pye 


Copyright  by 

EATON  &  MAINS, 

1902. 


To  THE  Life  Partner 

Who 

Has  Helped  Me  Phrase 

AND 

Answer 

The  Questions 

That  Ring  in  My  Own  Heart 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

I.  The  Question  of  the  First  Mur- 
derer : 
"  Am  I  My  Brother's  Keeper  ?  " 7 

II.  The  Question  of  an  Early  Phi- 
losopher : 
"  If  a  Man  Die,  Shall  He  Live  Again  ?  ".     29 

III.  The  Question  of  an  Ancient  Law- 

yer: 
"  Which  is  the  Great  Commandment  ?  ".     51 

IV.  The    Question     of    a     Tempted 

Leader: 
"  Why  Should  I  Come  Down  }" 73 

V.  The  Question  of    a  Frightened 
Jailer  : 
"  What  Must  I  Do  to  Be  Saved  }'" 95 

VI.  The  Question  of  a  Curious  Dis- 
ciple: 
"  Lord,  What  Shall  this  Man  Do  .>"... .   117 

VIL  The  Question  of  Old-fashioned 
Theology : 
"  Who  Did  Sin,  this  Man  or  His  Parents, 
that  He  Was  Born  Blind  }" 137 


6  Contents 

PAGE 

VIII.  The  Question  of  a  Night  Visitor  : 
"  How  Can  a  Man  Be  Born  when  He  is 
Old?" 157 

IX.  The  Question  of  an  Autocratic 
Employer  : 
"  Is  It  not  Lawful  for  Me  to  Do  What 

I  Will  with  Mine  Own  ?  " 177 

X.  The  Question  of  a  Ready  Critic  : 
"  Why  Was  not  this  Ointment  Sold  for 
Three  Hundred  Pence  and   Given 
to  the  Poor  ?  " 199 

XI.  The  Question  of   an  Imprisoned 
Prophet : 
"  Art  Thou  He  that  Should   Come,  or 

Look  We  for  Another  ?  " 219 

XII.  The    Question    of    a   Troubled 
Ruler  : 
"  What  Shall  I  Do,  Then,  with  Jesus  ?  "  241 


I 

THE  QUESTION  OF  THE   FIRST 
MURDERER 


"There  is  no  other  gift  that  is  so  worthy  of  giv- 
ing as  one's  own  self.  .  .  .  The  higher  you  are, 
the  more  you  owe  yourselves  to  the  very  lowest 
and  least.  ...  It  is  by  the  medicine  of  a  living  soul 
that  dead  souls  are  brought  to  life.  .  .  .  There  is 
nothing  so  life-giving  to  souls  as  other  souls 
warming  them.  And  we  owe  ourselves  to  our  fel- 
lowmen.  The  poorer  a  man  is,  the  more  he  needs 
you ;  and  the  further  he  is  from  those  states  which 
belong  to  educated  humanity,  the  stronger  is  your 
obligation  to  make  him  a  brother," — Bcecher. 

*'The  quality  of  mercy  is  not  strained ; 

It  droppeth  as  the  gentle  dew  from  heaven 

Upon  the  place  beneath ;  it  is  twice  blest : 

It  blesseth  him  that  gives  and  him  that  takes; 

'Tis  mightiest  in  the  mightiest." — Shakespeare. 

"We  then  that  are  strong  ought  to  bear  the  in- 
firmities of  the  weak,  and  not  to  please  ourselves." 
'—Paul. 


''AM  I  MY  BROTHER^S 
KEEPER?'* 

Modern  scientific  method  has  wrought 
sore  havoc  with  the  first  book  of  the 
Bible.  The  Mosaic  cosmogony  has  been 
shown  to  be  untenable.  The  familiar 
Adamic  narrative  has  been  relegated  to 
the  realm  of  poetry  and  story.  No  intelli- 
gent reader  is  allowed  to  believe  that  the 
serpent  went  upright  until  a  curse  was 
pronounced  upon  it.  The  identity  of 
Cain's  wife,  which  used  to  vex  the  the- 
ologians so  grievously,  is  to-day  declared 
as  unimportant  as  the  color  of  Pharaoh's 
horses  or  the  historic  basis  of  Thackeray's 
novels.  Indeed,  the  whole  narrative  of 
Genesis  has  been  stormed  with  scientific 
bombs  and  stabbed  by  satire;  and  we  ad- 
herents of  the  Book  are  invited  forward 
to  view  the  torn  remains. 

There  is,  doubtless,  some  damage  to 
lament.  But  the  story  is  still  far  from 
need  of  burial.     It  is  the  livest  story  in 


10  The  Question  of 

the  world.  No  scientific  scheme  will  ever 
permanently  improve  upon  or  set  aside 
those  majestic  first  words  of  Mosaic  ac- 
count: "In  the  beginning  God."  Adam 
shorn  of  his  theologic  significance  and 
strength  is  only  the  more  significant  and 
robust  figure.  The  familiar  serpent  means 
more  as  the  embodiment  of  that  sneaking 
power  which  blights  all  Edens  than  it  ever 
could  mean  in  its  more  ancient  setting. 
Vitality  has  taken  the  place  of  historicity, 
and  these  ancient  pictures  speak  to  human 
life  with  increasing  force  and  thrill.  The 
purpose  of  the  Bible  is  most  obviously 
moral.  Not  to  make  men  smart,  but  to 
make  them  'Vise  unto  salvation,"  is  its 
supremest  function.  Its  images,  its  poet- 
ry, all  have  that  bearing.  In  such  a  view 
the  book  of  Genesis  is  immortal;  and  in 
such  a  view  I  want  to  study  this  ancient 
question,  "Am  I  my  brother's  keeper?" 

It  was  in  the  first  instance,  as  you  recall, 
the  question  of  Cain  concerning  Abel. 
Cain  had  committed  an  outrageous  crime. 


The  First  Murderer  11 

Unable  to  see  his  brother's  sacrifice  more 
acceptable  than  his  own,  overcome  by  jeal- 
ousy and  hate,  he  had  lifted  up  a  mur- 
derous hand  against  that  brother.  He  had 
taken  human  life.  But  as  no  grave  was 
ever  deep  enough  to  cover  a  great  sin,  the 
crime  of  Cain  came  out.  To  use  the 
phraseology  of  Scripture,  a  brother's 
blood  kept  "crying  from  the  ground."  At 
length  came  God — sometimes  delayed,  we 
feel,  but  always  coming — and  whispering 
in  the  galleries  of  a  guilty  soul,  inquired, 
"Where  is  .  .  .  thy  brother?" 

You  know  how  a  single  word  will  burn 
as  with  an  iron;  how  a  Faradic  current 
will  find  the  diseased  spot  in  a  human 
organism;  how  a  flash  of  light  brings 
out  deformity  and  stain.  So  with  this 
searching  word  from  God:  "Where  is  .  .  . 
thy  brother?"  There  was  not  much  to 
say.  The  pitiless  deed  was  done.  Argu- 
ment would  only  weaken  an  already  des- 
perate case.  Even  as  he  paused  for  a  re- 
ply, Cain  could  hear  a  familiar  voice  cry- 


12  The  Question  of 

ing  as  if  from  the  very  earth.  And  he 
looked  up  into  the  face  of  Heaven,  and 
defiantly  inquired,  "Am  I  my  brother's 
keeper  ?" 

O,  what  a  question!  Tinged  with  all 
meanness  and  streaked  with  murder,  it 
has  come  echoing  down  through  the  cen- 
turies into  our  hearts.  Other  questions 
have  been  met  and  honored.  A  thousand 
inquiries  have  been  answered  and  disposed 
of.  But  the  question  of  Cain  is  young 
with  an  immortality  of  selfishness;  live 
and  burning  as  when  it  fell  from  his  guilty 
tongue. 

It  IS  only  a  few  years,  comparatively, 
since  well-churched  and  cultured  Bos- 
tonians  were  asking  why  they  should  lie 
awake  nights  over  the  miseries  of  the  ne- 
gro at  the  South.  What  if  backs  were 
torn  and  hearts  were  broken — was  that  a 
condition  to  disturb  Bostonians?  Boston 
indignantly  said  "No!"  Great  men  like 
Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  regretted  that  the 
issue  had  ever  been  raised.    Charles  Sum- 


The  First  Murderer  13 

ner  had  his  back  well  caned  for  obtruding 
it  upon  the  people.  It  took  years  and 
years  for  public  sentiment  to  grow,  and  to 
this  day  there  are  Bostonians — and  others 
— who  wonder  if  it  would  not  have  been 
better  had  the  question  never  been  asked 
the  slave  trade  of  the  South,  ''Am  I  my 
brother's  keeper?" 

We  take  a  good  deal  of  credit  to  our- 
selves for  our  recent  war  with  Spain.  And 
in  so  far  as  the  Spanish  war  cloud  was 
the  smoke  of  an  indignant  righteousness, 
we  are,  doubtless,  entitled  to  some  praise. 
But  be  it  remembered  that  it  took  a  long 
time  to  rouse  us  to  our  duty.  More  than 
thirty  years  ago  Henry  Ward  Beecher 
preached  a  sermon  on  "Cuba  and  the 
Brotherhood  of  Nations."  Nor  was  his 
voice  alone  in  protest.  Every  now  and 
again  some  flaming  soul  would  flash  out 
the  beacon  of  our  duty.  But  we  were  so 
busy  making  money,  and  so  afraid  of  in- 
ternational complications,  we  preferred  to 
let    the    Cubans    fight    out    their    battle 


14  The  Question  of 

alone.  Only  within  certain  territorial  lim- 
itations did  we  really  count  ourselves  our 
^'brother's  keeper." 

Some  of  you  will  recall  the  vivid  pages 
in  The  Honorable  Peter  Stirling,  which 
describe  that  hero's  campaign  for  pure 
milk  and  fresh  air  for  the  poor  children 
of  New  York  City.  He  had  hard  work 
to  find  supporters.  Nobody  wanted  to  go 
into  that  sort  of  a  contest.  How  could 
ordinary  West  Siders  be  expected  to  care 
what  sort  of  milk  the  East  Side  babies  got 
to  drink?  Financiers  winked  at  each 
other  behind  Stirling's  back.  Legislative 
committees  turned  him  down.  That  he 
won  was  not  due  to  any  cordiality  in  his 
support,  but  to  the  persistence  with  which 
he  thrust  his  question  down  New  York's 
unwilling  throat:  "Am  I  my  brother's 
keeper?" 

Or  if  you  want  the  truth  spelled  out  in 
characters  more  vivid  still,  take  the  work 
of  Jacob  Riis.  It  somehow  dawned  upon 
the   heart    of   this   imported    Dane   that 


The  First  Murderer  15 

one  half  of  a  great  city  ought  to  care  "how 
the  other  half  lives."  Forthwith  he  dedi- 
cated his  days  to  carrying  to  other  citi- 
zens the  light  which  had  dawned  upon 
him.  People  read  liis  books  and  viewed 
his  pictures.  Some  few  kind  tears  were 
shed.  A  handful  of  the  vilest  rookeries 
and  tenements  were  taken  down.  The 
Station  Houses  got  an  airing  and  a  par- 
tial cleaning  out.  A  few  outposts  of  crim- 
inal indifference  and  greed  were  taken. 
But,  according  to  Mr.  Riis,  the  great  con- 
test lies  on  ahead,  when  New  York  wakes 
up  to  the  tremendous  truth  that  we  are 
our  less  fortunate  brother's  ''keeper." 

I  suppose  that  no  subject  is  more  un- 
popular with  the  average  congregation 
than  that  of  "Foreign  Missions."  To 
name  it  is  to  chill  the  currents  of  ordinary 
piety.  Few  Church  members,  compara- 
tively, have  any  real  confidence  in  the 
efficiency  of  missionary  dollars.  Only  as 
we  maintain  the  economic  advantages  of 
Christianizing  the  Chinaman  and  Parsee 


16  The  Question  of 

do  we  rouse  certain  Christians  to  sympa- 
thy at  all.  ''Is  there  not  enough  bright- 
ening to  be  done  around  here  without 
sending  men  and  money  to  darkest  Af- 
rica?" "Are  there  not  plenty  of  hungry 
hearts  nearer  home  than  India  and  Cey- 
lon?" Ah,  friends,  it  is  the  spirit  which 
burned  in  the  Copperheads  of  '6i  and 
among  the  indifferent  friends  of  Cuban 
independence;  the  spirit  which  makes  the 
work  of  the  Peter  Stirlings  and  Jacob 
Riises  forever  bitter ;  the  spirit  which  first 
found  expression  in  the  words  of  an  an- 
tediluvian ancestor,  and  has  cast  its  cor- 
rosion into  every  succeeding  age — that 
same  spirit  which,  reproduced  in  you  and 
me,  prompts  us  to  ask  when  the  Mission- 
ary Cause  is  being  presented,  "Am  I  my 
brother's  keeper?" 

Let  me  venture  a  prediction.  Mission- 
ary movement,  in  one  form  or  another, 
is  in  the  air.  And  it  will  some  day  be  as 
sure  a  badge  of  immaturity  and  smallness 
to  have  opposed  the  Missionary  Cause,  as 


The  First  Murderer  17 

to  have  withstood  the  Antislavery  move- 
ment or  the  humanitarian  efforts  of  our 
great  cities. 

But  Cain's  question  comes  even  nearer 
home.  We  meet  it  not  only  on  Missionary 
Sunday  and  in  the  issues  of  great  cam- 
paigns, but  on  all  the  crowded  thorough- 
fares of  life.  Some  of  you  are  employers 
of  other  men.  To-morrow  you  will  go 
downtown  and  look  into  their  faces.  You 
pay  them  wages — good  wages,  perhaps 
— for  a  certain  amount  of  work.  And 
with  that  exchange  of  values  your  in- 
terest in  your  employees  ends.  They  are 
as  foreign  to  your  life  as  the  spindles  in 
a  factory  or  the  wires  on  the  telephone 
poles.  They  may  be  intemperate,  licen- 
tious, cruel;  but  so  long  as  they  do  not 
drink  to  excess  during  business  hours, 
and  their  excesses  do  not  unfit  them  for 
your  work,  and  they  do  not  practice  their 
cruelty  upon  your  horses,  you  have  no 
particular  concern.     Indeed,  you  do  not 

want  to  be  bothered  with  their  affairs. 
2 


18  The  Question  of 

Do  you?  If  I  should  suggest  that  you 
are  your  employee's  ''keeper"  to  the  ex- 
tent of  personal  sympathy  and  pains ;  that 
you  ought  to  be  a  saving  factor  in  his 
life;  that  you  owe  him  somewhat  besides 
his  wages  at  the  end  of  the  week,  would 
you  not  be  sure  I  had  better  been  preach- 
ing on  some  theme  more  strictly  theo- 
logical ? 

I  know  what  it  is  to  be  bothered  with 
countless  appeals  for  help.  Business  men 
put  a  notice  outside  their  office  door :  "AH 
applicants  for  charity  are  referred  to  the 
Bureau  of  Charities  and  Correction,  to 
which  this  office  contributes."  But  the 
minister  must  keep  open  door  to  all  peti- 
tioners. So  I  think  that  I  can  speak  in- 
telligently on  this  subject  at  least.  De- 
mands for  money,  demands  for  sympathy, 
demands  for  time  and  strength  come  thick 
enough  some  days  to  bankrupt  an  ordi- 
nary man.  I  sometimes  catch  myself  won- 
dering why  a  preacher  need  be  called 
down  from  the  elaboration  of  a  high  and 


The  First  Murderer  19 

holy  theme  to  listen  to  a  dreary  complaint 
of  poverty  and  pain.  Like  the  rest  of 
you,  I  hate  to  be  interrupted  at  a  good 
dinner,  to  look  into  a  hungry  face,  or  to 
be  told  of  some  family  that  has  not  a 
morsel  in  the  house.  If  I  look  cross  when 
the  thousandth  appeal  comes  in,  I  do  but 
prove  how  much  akin  to  ordinary  mortals 
we  pastors  doubtless  are. 

But  then  recurs  this  sobering  reflection. 
It  is  the  spirit  of  Cain  that  demands  to  be 
let  alone.  Our  Master  could  be  interrupt- 
ed by  any  cry  of  distress.  No  Transfig- 
uration Mount  was  so  high  but  He  would 
hurry  down  its  slopes  to  heal  a  demoniac 
boy  or  feed  a  hungry  throng.  He  could 
be  approached  at  Simon's  feast  by  a 
woman  who  needed  forgiving.  And  when 
a  sufferer  stopped  Him  on  His  ministry 
of  love  to  a  ruler's  home,  and  a  blind  beg- 
gar turned  up  his  sightless  eyes  for  the 
burdened  Christ  to  see,  He  had  time  to 
pause  and  say,  "I  will.  Be  thou  clean. 
Go  in  peace."    Dear  friends,  it  is  because, 


20  The  Question  of 

after  nineteen  centuries  of  Christian  doc- 
trine, we  are  still  so  much  more  like  Cain 
than  like  Jesus,  that  we  cry  in  the  presence 
of  human  suffering  and  shame,  *'Am  I 
my  brother's  keeper?" 

Or  take  the  sphere  of  personal  influence. 
How  pleasant  it  would  be  if  our  conduct 
had  no  bearing  on  the  conduct  of  our 
neighbors:  if  we  could  drink  our  mod- 
erate glass  and  indulge  our  pleasant  vices 
and  cultivate  our  particular  whims  with- 
out reference  to  anybody  else.  What  a 
pity  that  the  "weaker  brother"  should  be 
always  standing  around,  ready  to  be  of- 
fended at  our  "meat!"  What  right  has 
he  to  be  forever  looking  to  us  for  an  ex- 
ample, and  then  falling  over  our  harmless 
peccadillos  into  hell?  Let  the  "weaker 
brother"  look  out  for  himself.  We  can- 
not be  constantly  burdened  with  his  im- 
maturity and  folly!  If  he  cannot  take 
our  moderate  drink  without  making  a  sot 
of  himself,  that  is  his  account,  not  ours! 
If  he  must  make  occasion  of  our  infre- 


The  First  Murderer  21 

quent  theatre-going  to  visit  all  the  inde- 
cent play  houses  of  a  great  city,  he  will 
have  to  do  so,  that's  all!  If  he  cannot 
take  knowledge  of  our  innocent  recrea- 
tions except  to  become  a  vagabond  and 
wanton — so  much  the  worse  for  his  style 
of  manhood!  We  cannot  be  our  ''broth- 
er's keeper"  to  such  an  exasperating 
extent. 

To  which  declaration  I  will  return  a 
moment  later.  Just  now  it  is  enough  that 
I  should  inquire,  whether  it  is  the  spirit 
of  Cain  or  the  spirit  of  Jesus  which  asks, 
"Am  I  my  brother's  keeper?"  Cain's  po- 
sition was  orthodox  common  sense  until 
nineteen  centuries  ago.  The  world  wagged 
on  in  its  indifference  and  cruelty  of  spirit. 
The  "law  of  survival,"  as  Darwin  called 
it,  was  the  common  law  of  life.  The 
"weaker  brother"  had  no  rights  which  the 
community  felt  bound  to  respect.  He 
who  could  not  take  care  of  himself  must 
not  expect  anybody  to  take  care  of  him. 
Feebleness  must  look  out  for  itself. 


22  The  Question  of 

Then,  one  day  there  appeared,  on  Pal- 
estinian soil,  a  Man  of  simple  mien  and 
wondrous  eyes.  He  dared  to  contradict 
the  thought  of  ages.  He  declared  that 
Cain  was  wrong.  He  enthroned  the  prin- 
ciples of  helpfulness  and  kindness.  He 
went  about  searching  for  opportunities  to 
breathe  on  the  ''smoking  flax"  and  bind 
up  the  "bruised  reed."  He  encouraged 
all  sorts  of  human  weakness  and  incom- 
petence to  hang  upon  His  strength.  He 
devoted  three  precious  years  to  the  educa- 
tion of  a  little  band  of  men,  no  one  of 
whom,  according  to  our  codes,  was  fit  for 
intimacy  with  Him.  He  gave  love  and 
confidence  and  sympathy,  until  finally, 
stretched  upon  a  cross.  He  could  only  give 
His  life?  And  it  was  His  message  that 
one  caught  up  and  wrote  upon  the  sky. 
''We  that  are  strong  ought  to  bear  the  in- 
firmities of  the  weak."  "Brethren,  if  a 
man  be  overtaken  in  a  fault,  ye  which  are 
spiritual,  restore  him."  And  then  that 
tremendous  utterance :  "If  meat  make  my 


The  First  Murderer  23 

brother  to  offend,  I  will  eat  no  flesh  while 
the  world  standeth,  lest  I  make  my 
brother  to  offend." 

Did  you  read  that  sententious  bit  quoted 
by  Lyman  Abbott  in  the  Outlook?  ''Is 
Christianity  a  failure?"  '1  do  not  know," 
was  the  reply,  "it  has  never  been  tried!" 
What  an  affirmation  to  make  at  the  close 
of  nineteen  centuries  of  Christian  history, 
that  Christianity  "has  never  been  tried!" 
Yet  what  age  ever  tried  it  in  its  integrity  ? 
What  generation  of  men  was  ever  willing 
to  conduct  its  business  and  make  its  laws 
on  the  basis  of  the  "Sermon  on  the 
Mount?"  What  one  of  us  has  honestly 
and  persistently  sought  to  live  by  the  Mas- 
ter's rule?  For  example,  this  rule  of  hu- 
man helpfulness  and  pity.  Cain's  ques- 
tion still  has  the  sting  of  unkindness  and 
murder  in  it.  Not  many  of  us  are  willing 
to  ask  it  of  ourselves  in  the  spirit  of 
Mary's  son. 

I  know,  of  course,  what  some  of  you 
are  thinking.    You  would  speak  it  out  if 


24  The  Question  of 

this  were  an  open  meeting.  So  I  will  try 
to  phrase  it  for  you. 

Among  the  most  notable  commercial 
failures  of  recent  years  is  that  of  the  lar- 
gest cooperative  manufacturing  establish- 
ment in  the  United  States.  For  years  its 
chief  owner  had  tried  to  treat  his  em- 
ployees according  to  the  Golden  Rule.  He 
had  invited  them  to  his  heart,  to  his  home, 
and  to  a  share  in  the  profits  of  his  busi- 
ness. He  was  a  shining  example  of  what 
some  of  us  are  hoping  may  yet  be  the 
prevailing  tone  of  trade.  But  after  years 
of  generosity  and  Gospel  principle,  he 
failed! 

In  a  not  distant  city  live  the  widow  and 
daughters  of  a  prominent  Methodist  min- 
ister. During  his  life  he  drew  good  sal- 
aries— as  such  salaries  are  reckoned.  He 
tried  to  adopt  the  Gospel  rule.  In  the 
most  practical  of  ways  he  sought  to  be- 
come his  ^'brother's  keeper."  To  no 
worthy  appeal  did  he  turn  an  unrespon- 
sive ear.    He  gave,  and  gave,  and  gave — 


The  First  Murderer  25 

until  at  his  death  there  was  hardly  enough 
money  in  the  bank  to  bury  him.  And  to- 
day his  family  are  dependent  upon  the 
largess  and  thoughtfulness  of  friends. 
These  are  samples,  you  say,  of  the  inepti- 
tude of  the  Gospel  method. 

A  man  asked  me  the  other  day  if  he 
ought  to  give  up  his  occasional  glass  of 
liquor  because  his  neighbor  could  not  take 
an  occasional  glass  without  going  fur- 
ther; if  he  ought  to  swear  off  smoking  a 
cigar  now  and  then,  as  an  inducement  to 
the  same  forswearing  by  his  friend;  if, 
further,  he  must  give  up  the  use  of  veal 
and  sparerib  to  meet  the  weakness  of  cer- 
tain citizens  who  cannot  eat  such  things. 
Obviously  the  principle  can  be  carried  to  a 
ridiculous  extreme.  As  well  argue  that 
because  certain  dyspeptics  must  live  on 
milk  and  vichy,  the  rest  of  us  should  adopt 
that  kind  of  diet. 

There  must  be  a  margin  of  common 
sense  in  all  things,  and  nowhere  more 
clearly  than  in  the  application  of  Gospel 


26  The  Question  of 

principle.  The  business  man  oi  whom  I 
spoke  a  moment  since  would  doubtless 
have  been  more  intelligently  his  "broth- 
er's keeper"  if  he  had  kept  back  part  of 
the  divided  profits  to  enlarge  his  business 
and  thus  give  the  employees  a  longer  ten- 
ure. And  the  minister  who  gave  his  sal- 
ary away  to  feed  the  poor  would  have 
come  nearer  the  Gospel  ideal  if  he  had 
remembered  the  wife  and  children  depend- 
ent upon  him.  As  for  the  other  instance, 
it  must  always  be  true  that  ''one  man's 
meat  is  another  man's  poison." 

But  in  a  thousand  ways  it  still  remains 
that  I  am  my  "brother's  keeper."  The 
world's  real  progress  has  all  been  in  that 
direction.  You  may  register  our  advance 
by  the  growth  of  the  conviction  that  we 
owe  somewhat  to  the  "weaker  brother." 
The  rule  of  the  jungle  is  "an  eye  for  an 
eye  and  a  tooth  for  a  tooth."  The  rule  of 
the  Kingdom  is  to  become  some  "brother's 
keeper."  To  my  mind  the  finest  utterance 
that  ever  fell  from  the  lips  of  Paul  was 


The  First  Murderer  27 

when  he  declared  himself  ''debtor"  to  the 
man  who  had  never  done  anything  for 
him.  Such  was  the  maxim  of  Shaftesbury 
when  he  turned  from  Parliamentary  Halls 
to  look  up  some  vagabond.  It  was  such 
a  conviction  that  sent  Gladstone  to  the 
garret  of  the  fellow  who  swept  his  cross- 
ing. By  such  a  token,  only,  can  we  ac- 
count for  the  grandeur  of  Florence  Night- 
ingale and  Fox,  of  Paul  and  Jesus !  We 
shall  be  able  to  take  our  own  grade  by  the 
acceptance  of  such  a  code  for  our  life.  The 
labor  problem  will  be  solved,  the  liquor 
question  will  be  finally  disposed  of,  and 
the  kingdom  of  kindness  will  most  mar- 
velously  come,  when  we  begin  to  believe 
gladly,  intelligently,  and  widely  that  we 
are  indeed  our  "brother's  keeper." 


II 

THE   QUESTION  OF  AN  EARLY 
PHILOSOPHER 


"I  am  rising,  I  know,  toward  the  sky.  The  sun- 
shine is  on  my  head.  The  earth  gives  me  its  gen- 
erous sap,  but  Heaven  lights  me  with  the  reflec- 
tion of  unknown  worlds.  .  .  .  The  nearer  I  ap- 
proach the  end,  the  plainer  I  hear  around  me  the 
immortal  symphonies  of  the  worlds  which  invite 
me.  .  .  .  When  I  go  down  to  the  grave,  I  can 
say,  like  many  others,  I  have  finished  my  day's 
work,  but  I  cannot  say  that  I  have  finished  my 
life.  My  days  will  begin  again  the  next  morning. 
The  tomb  is  not  a  blind  alley ;  it  is  a  thoroughfare. 
It  closes  on  the  twilight  to  open  on  the  dawn." — 
Hugo. 

"The  maxim  that  Nature  makes  no  leaps  is  far 
from  true.  Nature's  habit  is  to  make  prodigious 
leaps,  but  only  after  long  preparation.  .  .  .  Slowly 
grows  the  eccentricity  of  the  ellipse  as  you  shift 
its  position  in  the  cone,  and  still  the  nature  of  the 
curve  is  not  essentially  varied,  when,  suddenly, 
presto !  one  more  little  shift,  and  the  finite  ellipse 
becomes  an  infinite  hyperbola  mocking  our  fee- 
ble powers  of  conception  as  it  speeds  on  its  ever- 
lasting career.  Perhaps  in  our  ignorance  such 
analogies  may  help  us  to  realize  the  possibility 
that  steadily  developing,  ephemeral,  conscious  life 
may  reach  a  critical  point  where  it  suddenly  puts 
on  immortality." — Fiske. 

"For  we  know  that  if  our  earthly  house  of  this 
tabernacle  were  dissolved,  we  have  a  building  of 
God,  an  house  not  made  with  hands,  eternal  in  the 
heavens." — Paul. 


''IF  A  MAN  DIE, 
SHALL  HE  LIVE  AGAIN  ?^ 

Job  may  be  pardoned  for  the  cynical 
tone  in  which  he  asked  this  familiar  ques- 
tion. It  is  a  good  deal  easier  to  accept 
great  truths  for  other  people  than  to  hold 
them  to  one's  own  heart.  It  is  one  thing 
tO'  believe  in  justice  and  Providence  and 
Heaven  when  the  path  lies  through  the 
daylight;  to  believe  in  these  same  things 
equally  when  the  sun  has  set,  and  even 
the  stars  have  hid  their  faces,  is  quite  an- 
other matter.  Creeds  change  with  the 
barometer.  The  headlands  which  rise  so 
clear  and  bold  to-day  may  not  be  visible 
to-morrow.  Whether  the  sky  shall  be 
blue  or  leaden  depends  upon  the  direction 
of  the  wind.  And  no  devout  believer  of 
to-day  can  say  what  he  will  believe  next 
week,  next  month. 

I  fancy  that  Job  would  have  talked  in 
a  very  different  strain  had  he  been  called 

31 


32  The  Question  of 

upon  to  give  his  views  a  few  weeks  earlier. 
Then  Hfe  was  robust  and  prosperity 
seemed  assured.  It  was  easy  at  such  a 
time  to  affirm  the  proper  creed.  The 
healthy  man  feels  a  sort  of  immortality 
within  his  bones.  Success  is  a  prismatic 
lens  which  edges  all  the  distant  scene  with 
rainbow  colorings.  Life  at  its  flood  goes 
bounding  on  as  though  there  could  be  no 
ebb.  It  took  affliction  and  weariness  and 
pain,  the  loss  of  health  and  home  and 
fortune,  and  finally  the  dismal  ash  heap, 
to  wring  from  Job  the  despairing  ques- 
tion, *'If  a  man  die,  shall  he  live  again?" 
He  was  trying  to  read  a  chapter  in  the 
dark.  He  was  reconstructing  his  code  to 
fit  the  more  savage  facts  of  life.  Caught 
in  the  eddy  of  a  maelstrom  that  seemed  to 
know  no  pity,  he  was  crying  for  the  shore. 
But  I  have  selected  this  question  be- 
cause  men  are  still  asking  it.  It  is  a  burn- 
ing question  for  the  ages.  It  lay  hot  upon 
the  lips  of  this  ancient  questioner.  It  still 
glows  with  the  earnestness  and  passion  of 


An  Early  Philosopher  33 

countless  human  hearts.  I  do  not  believe 
there  is  a  single  question  whose  final  an- 
swer would  mean  so  much  to  men.  Tell 
them  they  must  not  ask  it — you  might  as 
well  tell  Niagara  to  stop  her  onward 
plunge,  or  the  moon  to  halt  in  her  path. 
Tell  men  the  answer  does  not  matter,  and 
they  will  only  look  at  you  with  hungry, 
wondering  eyes.  Tell  them  there  are 
enough  present  things  to  engross  man- 
kind's attention,  and  they  will  carry  this 
question  off  to  a  cloistered  cell  and  ask  it 
there.  Bishop  Foster  once  declared  that 
he  had  read  every  English  volume  and 
monograph  on  immortality.  A  certain 
lawyer  of  fine  intelligence  and  earnest 
study  says  he  would  barter  all  his  pos- 
sessions for  an  affirmative  answer  to  the 
query  of  Job.  His  search  has  been  an 
unremitting  one.  He  has  bought  all  the 
standard  works.  He  has  dipped  into  an- 
cient necromancy  and  modern  spiritism. 
He  has  attended  seances  and  talked  with 
great  theologians.     And  now,  with  one 


34  The  Question  of 

foot  in  the  grave,  he  draws  back  for  a  final 
certification  that  there  is  a  farther  door. 

In  the  charming  letters  of  Edwin  Booth 
there  is  one  written  in  1863,  a  few  weeks 
after  the  death  of  his  beautiful  young 
wife:  "I  lie  awake  at  night  and  look  for 
her  in  the  darkness.  I  hold  my  breath  and 
listen,  and  sometimes  fancy  I  can  hear  her 
speak  away  in  somewhere — in  my  soul, 
perhaps;  for  I  know  that  if  it  is  possible 
for  her  to  come  back,  she  will  come  to  me 
some  night.  She  is  in  Heaven  (they  say) , 
and  I  must  live  to  meet  her  there.  I  know 
all  this,  at  least  as  well  as  they  know  it; 
but  I  do  need  some  sign  from  her,  some 
little  breath  of  wind  if  nothing  more, 
bringing  comforting  words  from  her.  I, 
who  have  ever  laughed  at  such  things, 
now  feel  mystified  and  half  believe  that 
such  things  may  be.  If  Mary  should 
come  to  me  I  feel  that  my  soul  would  be- 
come purified.  I  shall  no  longer  have 
doubts." 

There  are  times  when  the  devoutest 


An  Early  Philosopher  35 

Christian  would  give  a  thousand  years  of 
future  Paradise  for  the  Paradise  of  a 
present  word  or  touch.  When  standing 
in  the  shadows,  the  words  of  IngersoU 
seem  none  too  melancholy :  "Life  is  a  nar- 
row vale  between  the  mountain  peaks  of 
two  eternities.  .  .  .  The  skies  give  back 
no  sound.  .  .  .  We  cry  aloud  and  the 
only  answer  is  the  echo  of  our  wailing 
cry."  Such  were  the  great  infidel's  words 
at  his  brother's  open  grave.  O,  how  many 
anguished  hearts,  like  his,  have  cried  up 
into  the  skies  and  for  answer  caught  only 
the  echo  of  their  own  lamentation!  In 
the  "narrow  vale"  how  many  pilgrims 
have  lost  their  way!  Against  those  un- 
yielding peaks  how  many  souls  have 
bruised  and  broken  their  wings !  Earth's 
most  fevered  search  and  bitterest  agonies 
are  in  that  ancient  phrase :  "If  a  man  die, 
shall  he  live  again?" 

Now,  I  might  as  well  confess  that  I  do 
not  pretend  to  have  found  the  sufficient 
answer.     What  the  wisest  minds  of  all 


36  The  Question  of 

the  ages  have  signally  failed  to  prove,  I 
may  not  hope  to  prove.  But  I  do  think 
there  is  something  to  be  said.  In  the  ab- 
sence of  proof  there  still  may  be  precious 
hints.  And  because  I  believe  they  are  spe- 
cially needed  to-day,  I  want  to  suggest  a 
few  of  them.  The  impression  prevails 
that  modern  science  has  made  havoc  of 
the  last  article  in  the  Apostles'  Creed. 
Excess  of  light  on  many  subjects  has 
seemed  to  throw  the  question  of  immor- 
tality into  still  deeper  shade.  Aggressive 
materialism  has  shaken  too  many  a  faith. 
And  men  are  finding  it  harder  than  ever 
to  believe,  even  with  trembling,  that  a 
man  lives  on  after  death. 

It  ought  not  to  be  so.  Science  has  not 
done  half  so  much  damage  as  she  thinks 
she  has.  She  has  mistaken  her  own  bark- 
ing for  the  crash  of  falling  walls,  and 
counted  the  slain  before  they  were  fairly 
hurt.  The  foundations  have  not  really 
been  disturbed.  Men  have  as  good  a  war- 
rant for  believing  in  the  ''life  everlasting" 


An  Early  Philosopher  37 

as  they  had  when  David  tuned  his  harp  or 
Stephen  fell  asleep. 

But  I  may  be  most  helpful,  perhaps,  if 
I  take  up  some  of  the  current  objections 
to  immortality  as  they  appeal  to  men. 
There  is,  in  the  first  place,  the  stock  argu- 
ment of  so-called  "common  sense:"  no- 
body ever  comes  back.  Shakespeare  wrote 
of  the  "undiscovered  country  from  whose 
bourn  no  traveler  returns."  How  do  we 
know  that  "no  traveler  returns?"  Might 
we  expect  to  behold  him  with  a  naked 
eye?  and  hear  him  with  a  fleshly  ear?  If 
he  be  spirit,  as  we  suppose,  he  certainly 
would  have  a  hard  time  meeting  either  of 
these  tests. 

Men  tell  me  they  would  be  wiUing  to 
go  the  rest  of  the  journey  without  a  mur- 
mur if  they  could  talk  five  minutes  with 
some  traveler  who  had  passed  within  the 
veil.  I  hear  of  mothers  who  promised  to 
come  back  to  guide  their  children;  of 
wives  who  left  their  husbands  wiaiting 
for  a  word ;  of  friends  who,  in  the  hour  of 


38  The  Question  of 

dissolution,  pledged  their  sacred  honor  to 
return.  Who  is  to  say  they  have  not  re- 
turned according  to  their  promise?  Who 
knows  but  it  Is  the  vanished  mother  that 
sometimes  comforts  so  divinely?  Why 
may  it  not  be  the  spirit  hand  of  one  whom 
we  have 

"Loved  long  since  and  lost  awhile" 

whose  touch  upon  our  hearts  turns  us 
away  from  harm,  away  from  sacrilege? 
"Are  they  not  all  ministering  spirits?" 

No  thoughtful  man  would  expect  to 
understand  the  ''Rhapsodie"  of  Liszt  by 
holding  his  hand  against  the  sounding- 
board  of  the  piano  on  which  it  was  being 
played.  He  would  scarcely  attempt  to 
appraise  the  value  of  a  diamond  or  canvas 
by  taste  or  smell.  The  higher  senses  must 
come  into  play — the  hearing  and  the  see- 
ing. Let  a  man  be  blind  and  deaf,  and 
the  world  that  is  left  to  him  is  largely 
carnal.  All  music  and  beauty,  all  whis- 
pering winds  and  flash  of  star,  all  bird 
song  and  sunset,  all  thunder  and  rainbow. 


An  Early  Philosopher  39 

all  a  mother's  endearments  and  a  mother's 
smiles,  together  with  a  thousand  other 
precious  things,  would  be  gone. 

Suppose,  then,  the  inhabitant  of  such  a 
universe  should  imagine  that  were  all. 
He  would  be  as  near  the  truth  as  we  are 
when  we  assume  to  pass  upon  the  realities 
of  the  spirit  world  by  sight  and  hearing. 
Our  senses  were  given  to  serve  us  in  our 
contact  with  the  present  sensuous  world 
— not  to  taste  the  joy  of  Heaven,  or  hear 
the  rustle  of  a  wing,  or  see  the  faces  of 
the  dead.  How  absurd,  then,  to  base  our 
infidelic  creed  upon  the  limitations  of  our 
range.  That  we  cannot  hear  the  step  of 
returning  feet — what  sort  of  warrant  is 
that  for  denying  that  they  return  ? 

But  there  is  a  second  objection  not  al- 
together dissimilar  to  the  first.  It  is  that 
the  future  life  is  unreal  because  we  can- 
not conceive  it  except  in  terms  of  space 
and  matter.  Of  course  we  cannot  con- 
ceive it;  but  what  is  that  against  its 
reality  ?    Not  so  very  long  ago  everybody 


40  The  Question  of 

believed  that  the  sun  swung  round  the 
earth.  Men's  eyes  told  them  so,  and  they 
could  construct  no  solar  system  except 
upon  the  basis  of  what  their  eyes  beheld. 
But  their  eyes  were  wrong,  as  everybody 
knows  to-day.  Our  imageries  are  con- 
structed out  of  our  personal  observations 
and  experiences.  We  have  no  creative 
power  except  in  arrangement  and  combi- 
nation. We  can  conceive  nothing  beyond 
our  personal  register.  The  centaur,  as 
the  ancients  pictured  him,  was  not  a  new 
creation;  he  was  merely  a  combination  of 
horse  and  man. 

The  novelist  and  the  historian  deal  with 
the  same  facts  and  write  the  same  story. 
The  difference  is  that  one  sets  down  his 
facts  in  chronological  succession  and  we 
call  the  product  a  history,  while  the  other 
throws  the  same  facts  into  the  smelting 
pot  of  his  imagination  and  we  call  his 
work  a  novel.  The  angels  of  mediaeval 
art  were  merely  sexless  human  beings  of 
perfect  form  and  grace,  with  superadded 


An  Early  Philosopher  41 

wings.  God  was  simply  a  gigantic  man 
of  terrible  mien  and  reverberating  tread. 
Imagination  is  forever  limited  by  the 
bounds  of  the  universe  in  which  its  master 
moves.  That  we  cannot  adequately  con- 
ceive Heaven  is  not  Heaven's  fault,  but 
the  result  of  our  limitations.  John's  vi- 
sion of  the  New  Jerusalem  was  in  fact  the 
vision  of  an  enlarged  and  perfected  Old 
Jerusalem.  He  would  have  done  better 
if  he  had  really  been  in  Heaven ;  but,  even 
so,  we  should  not  be  able  to  understand 
his  description  unless  we  had  been  there 
ourselves. 

We  have  no  power  to  conceive  a  disem- 
bodied spirit;  hence,  science  says,  we  must 
refuse  to  believe  such  spirits  can  exist. 
This  is  the  dictum  of  Hume  and  all  his 
followers :  ''Believe  nothing  beyond  the 
range  of  the  understanding."  What  mon- 
strous folly!  To  assume  that  there  can 
be  no  existences,  no  realities,  no  powers 
beyond  those  for  which  we  have  the  pat- 
tern in  our  minds.     It  took  thousands  of 


42  The  Question  of 

years  for  the  light  of  the  nearest  fixed 
star  to  reach  our  planet.  Had  there  been 
astronomers  in  those  days  they  might  have 
denied  the  existence  of  the  stars.  But  the 
beams  fell  on  earth  at  last.  So  it  may  be 
that  the  "light  of  the  knowledge  of  the 
glory  of  God"  shall  yet  dawn  upon  us 
from  darkened  corners  of  His  vast  uni- 
verse. But  whether  or  not  it  dawn  while 
we  are  watching,  let  us  never  be  so  arro- 
gant as  to  assume  that  the  stars  we  cannot 
see  do  not  exist. 

Is  it  anything  against  the  reality  and 
valid  uses  of  the  telephone  that  the  Lap- 
lander denies  ?  Does  the  fact  that  a  mere 
handful  of  citizens  have  just  conception 
of  Marconi's  invention  prove  anything 
against  it  ?  "The  luminif erous  ether  com- 
bines properties  which  are  inconceivable 
in  connection :"  is,  then,  man's  clumsiness 
of  understanding  to  be  alleged  against  the 
fact? 

Let  us  be  fair.  John  Fiske  says  that 
"there  are  in  all  probability  vast  regions 


An  Early  Philosopher  43 

of  existence  in  every  way  as  real  as  the 
regions  which  we  know,  yet  concerning 
which  we  cannot  form  the  rudiment  of  a 
conception."  In  such  "vast  regions"  there 
is  room  for  immortality.  Beyond  your 
ken  and  mine  the  soul  released  from  pris- 
on mr.y  ''find  the  day."  Immortality  is 
not  the  desperate  hazard  but  the  rational 
assumption  of  earnest,  reverent  minds. 

Which  brings  me  to  a  third  objection  to 
immortality,  as  frequently  alleged:  the 
difficulty  of  providing  a  place  for  the 
countless  myriads  of  souls.  Dr.  James 
reminds  us  that  ''for  our  ancestors  the 
world  was  a  small  and  .  .  .  comparative- 
ly snug  affair"  which  had  been  in  exist- 
ence only  for  a  few  thousand  years.  On 
such  a  basis  it  was  easy  to  conceive  an 
adequate  abode  for  all  the  departed.  The- 
ology, toO',  helped  by  keeping  down  the 
number  of  the  elect.  Even  Christians  felt 
it  hardly  necessary  to  provide  eternal  ac- 
commodations for  the  heathen.  Whereas, 
to-day,  with  the  vast  lengthening  of  crea- 


44  The  Question  of 

tive  periods  and  human  history,  with  our 
wider  view  and  deeper  study,  we  have 
come  to  a  point  at  which  we  really  cannot 
imagine  what  to  do  with  the  teeming 
millions.  And  in  our  bewilderment  we 
would  sooner  relinquish  faith  in  our  own 
immortal  nature  than  admit  the  swarms 
of  Hindus,  Chinamen,  and  South  Sea 
Islanders  to  the  same  sort  of  immortality 
we  have  been  craving  for  ourselves.  It 
requires  too  great  a  stretch  of  the  imag- 
ination, not  to  say  too  great  a  yielding  of 
our  pride,  to  mentally  provide  for  such  a 
horde.  What  use  can  God  have  for  Ma- 
laysians and  Abyssinians  ? 

Ah,  there's  the  fallacy.  We  have  small 
warrant  for  imposing  our  mental  limita- 
tions upon  the  Father  of  Spirits.  Is  it 
not  fair  to  suppose  that  His  plan  may  in- 
clude some  details  that  have  not  occurred 
to  us?  He  has  obvious  use  for  myriads 
of  agents  we  never  suspected  until  the 
microscope  came.  He  finds  space  for 
countless  inhabitants  in  a  single  drop  of 


An  Early  Philosopher  45 

water.  May  we  not  admit,  then,  that  in 
all  the  length  and  breadth  of  an  infinite 
universe  He  can  make  room  for  the  poor 
groping  sons  of  God  we  fail  to  recognize? 
His  heart  is  still  larger  than  ours.  He 
knows  some  things  that  our  greatest  phi- 
losophers have  not  yet  guessed.  He  is 
even  more  fertile  of  expedient  than  Mar- 
coni or  Edison.  Our  dilemmas  may  not 
be  dilemmas  to  Him,  and  our  impossibles 
are  quite  possible  to  Him.  I  give  Him 
credit  for  being  divine  enough  to  manage 
a  vast  proposition  with  credit  to  Himself 
and  with  fairness  to  every  creature. 

The  last  objection  I  want  to  name  is 
the  very  citadel  of  materialism  —  "no 
thought  without  phosphorus;  no  thinker 
without  a  brain."  Modern  science  de- 
clares that  the  inner  life  of  man  is  purely 
a  function  of  the  gray  matter  of  the  brain. 
The  idiot  is  a  human  being  with  an  ar- 
rested brain  development.  The  criminal 
is  commonly  a  mental  degenerate.  Every- 
body knows  the  result  of  a  violent  blow 


46  The  Question  of 

upon  the  skull.  Psychology  goes  even  so 
far  as  to  locate  particular  phases  of  men- 
tal and  emotional  activity  in  special  lobes 
and  convolutions.  Evidently  our  sensu- 
ous life  is  a  function  of  the  brain.  Then 
what  warrant  is  there  for  supposing  the 
thinker  to  live  on  after  the  brain  is  ob- 
viously gone  ?  If  the  brain  is  a  harp  and 
life  its  music,  how  can  we  expect  music 
when  the  harp  is  hopelessly  ruined? 

The  soul  is  not  the  music  but  the  harper. 
The  brain  is  only  a  temporary  instrument 
of  expression.  Ole  Bull  was  not  de- 
pendent upon  a  single  violin.  Violins 
might  all  have  been  broken  and  he  would 
have  built  a  new  one  on  which  to  play. 
Break  the  harp  on  which  our  souls  play 
here  and  they  will  not,  therefore,  have 
forgotten  how  to  play.  I  believe  that  God 
has  diviner  harps  than  those  within  our 
skulls ;  more  musical  strings  than  our  net- 
work of  nerves  and  organs ;  and  I  believe 
that  when  He  takes  the  harper  away  from 
this  poor,  oft-disordered  instrument,  it  is 


An  Early  Philosopher  47 

only  as  when  a  pupil  is  promoted  from 
the  clavier  to  the  piano — that  he  may  find 
expression  for  all  the  music  he  has  learned. 
But  I  have  occupied  the  time  in  an- 
swering objections,  and  there  is  only  a 
moment  left  for  the  more  positive  argu- 
ments. Take  the  fact  of  man's  longing 
for  immortality.  An  isolated  yearning 
may  not  be  significant.  That  a  baby  cries 
for  the  moon  is  poor  argument  that  the 
moon  was  intended  for  baby  hands.  But 
if  all  babies  cried  for  the  moon,  and  con- 
tinued to  cry  imperiously  year  after  year, 
the  phenomenon  would,  at  least,  be  sug- 
gestive. And  when  we  find  men  of  every 
age  and  rank,  from  fetich  worshiper  to 
Victor  Hugo,  all  looking  and  longing  for 
immortality,  I  believe  the  phenomenon 
amounts  to  an  argument  of  the  strongest 
kind.  Modern  science  declares  that  appe- 
tence and  means  of  gratification  are  bal- 
anced. We  should  hardly  have  eyes  but 
for  an  objective  universe  to  behold.  John 
Fiske  says  that  the  cat  has  whiskers  be- 


48  The  Question  of 

cause  there  is  an  external  world  against 
which  to  brush,  and  from  which  to  be 
defended.  It  is  the  mother  instinct  that 
makes  a  girl  love  her  dolly:  motherhood 
proves  the  veraciousness  of  the  instinct. 
So  I  believe  that  the  untutored  and  un- 
conquerable longing  of  mankind — wide  as 
the  human  race — is  itself  rational  ground 
for  the  assurance  of  an  immortality  to 
meet  the  longing. 

Or  take  another  consideration.  Unless 
immortality  be  true,  the  creature  has  an 
advantage  over  the  Creator.  We  still 
play  Handel's  music,  but  Handel  has 
passed  from  sight.  Hamlet  still  lives  by 
the  fire  of  Shakespeare's  genius,  but 
Shakespeare  himself  is  dead.  *'Is  'In  Me- 
moriam'  more  than  Tennyson?  Is  St. 
Paul's  Cathedral  more  than  Sir  Christo- 
pher Wren,  its  architect?  Is  the  leaf  to 
live  while  the  tree  dies  ?  ...  If  thoughts 
live  the  thinker  cannot  die."  Edison  is 
greater  than  any  of  his  inventions. 
Beecher  is  more  immortal  than  any  of  his 


An  Early  Philosopher  49 

sermons.  Jesus  is  surely  diviner  than  His 
Gospel. 

Then  add  to  this  the  fact  that  a  man  is, 
often,  most  able  to  live  when  he  comes  to 
die.  Hugo  once  said :  ''You  say  that  the 
soul  is  nothing  but  the  result  of  bodily 
powers.  Why,  then,  is  my  soul  more 
luminous  when  bodily  powers  begin  to 
fail?  Winter  is  on  my  head,  and  eternal 
summer  is  in  my  heart.  I  feel  that  I  have 
not  said  a  thousandth  part  of  what  is  in 
me."  Can  a  man  honestly  believe  God 
thus  wastes  material  and  skill? 

Remember,  also,  the  testimony  of  Jesus. 
He  said  there  was  a  life  beyond  the  tomb. 
He  declared  His  own  resurrection.  Was 
He  mistaken  ?  or  untrue  ?  Then  you  have 
the  paradox  of  the  purest  mind  that  ever 
graced  our  earth — Himself  deceived  or 
willfully  deceiving.  Ah,  friends,  by  all 
these  voices  are  we  driven  back  to  change 
Job's  question  into  an  affirmation,  *Tf  a 
man  die,  he  skall  live  again !" 


Ill 

THE  QUESTION   OF  AN   ANCIENT 
LAWYER 


"It  is  especially  wicked  to  take  the  strong  point 
in  ourselves  and  with  it  cut  against  the  weak 
point  in  our  companions." — Beecher. 

"Habits  of  honesty,  habits  of  prayer,  are  mere 
bondages  unless  they  are  helping  somehow  the 
production  of  a  free,  honest,  and  prayerful  char- 
acter. The  only  object  in  bandaging  and  twisting 
a  man's  crooked  leg  is  that  some  day  it  may  get 
a  free  straightness  into  it  which  will  make  it  keep 
its  truf  shape  when  it  is  set  free  from  bandages ;  a 
law  of  liberty  instead  of  a  law  of  constraint.  If 
that  day  is  never  coming,  bandaging  is  mere  wan- 
ton cruelty.  Better  take  the  bandages  off  and  let 
it  be  crooked,  if  it  is  getting  no  inner  straightness, 
and  will  be  crooked  as  soon  as  they  are  removed." 
— Brooks. 

"Ye  pay  tithe  of  mint  and  anise  and  cummin, 
and  have  omitted  the  weightier  matters  of  the 
law,  judgment,  mercy,  and  faith," — Jesus. 


'•WHICH  IS 
THE  GREAT  COMMANDMENT?^' 

The  lav;yer's  question  was,  on  the  face 
of  it,  a  fair  one.  He  merely  asked,  appar- 
ently, the  rule  of  goodness  for  his  life. 
Confused,  it  might  seem,  by  the  multi- 
plicity of  ecclesiastical  requirements,  he 
begged  a  simplification  of  the  code.  He 
heard  that  Jesus  could  answer  all  manner 
of  inquiries :  might  there  not  be  some  final 
word  for  the  present  case?  ''Which  is  the 
great  commandment  in  the  law?" 

There  are  questions  which  enfold  with- 
in themselves  the  agony  of  a  heart,  the 
movement  of  a  lifelong  struggle.  Such 
was  the  question  of  the  Trappist  monk 
who  once  had  marched  beneath  Napo- 
leon's eagles.  Upon  the  Emperor's  defeat 
he  had  given  himself  to  the  monastic  life 
in  the  order  of  La  Trappe.  Not  even 
conversation  was  permitted  him:  perpet- 


54  The  Question  of 

ual  silence  was  added  to  the  usual  monas- 
tic vows.  Thus  passed  the  dreary  years. 
But  just  before  he  died,  he  looked  into  the 
face  of  the  brother  who  attended  him, 
and  pouring  the  pent-up  fever  of  the  years 
into  a  single  burning  word,  he  whispered, 
"The  Emperor  —  what  became  of  the 
Emperor  ?" 

I  have  stood  beside  men  after  the 
sirocco  of  their  adversity  had  passed, 
when  the  very  soil  beneath  their  feet 
seemed  parched  and  lifeless,  and  heard 
them  moan  in  an  agony  of  loss,  "What  is 
there  left?"  There  is  an  experience  in 
which  the  earnest  soul  cries  up  out  of  its 
doubts  and  fears  toward  Him  who  broods 
over  all  continents  and  seas,  "O,  that  I 
knew  where  I  might  find  Him!"  I  be- 
lieve that  such  questions  find  God's  heart. 
But  such  was  not  this  lawyer's  question. 
He  was  merely  tempting  Christ,  and  be- 
cause his  question  is  representative,  it 
may  well  repay  our  study. 

Every  student  of  the  Bible  must  have 


An  Ancient  Lawyer  55 

noticed  that  Jesus  answered  the  real  ques- 
tions of  men's  hearts,  rather  than  the 
smart  phrases  of  their  Hps.  He  looked 
into  a  questioner's  eyes  and  read  the  mo- 
tive behind  the  spoken  word.  Which  ac- 
counts for  the  seeming  irrelevance  of 
certain  of  His  replies:  He  was  an- 
swering the  unspoken  query.  Take,  for 
example,  the  famous  interview  with  Nic- 
odemus.  Nicodemus  had,  apparently, 
only  compliments  to  give.  He  had  come 
by  night  to  this  new  Teacher.  He  was 
ready  for  a  tilt  of  words.  He  had  a  score 
of  questions  already  phrased  for  utter- 
ance. But  when  Jesus  spoke,  it  was  to 
give  a  personal,  searching  word.  I  do 
not  believe  Nicodemus  ever  got  the  an- 
swer he  came  ostensibly  to  secure,  but  he 
turned  away  with  an  arrow  stuck  in  his 
soul. 

Or  take  the  case  of  the  young  ruler  who 
came  inquiring  what  he  should  do  that  he 
might  ''inherit  eternal  life."  For  a  mo- 
ment Jesus  apparently  ignored  the  ques- 


56  The  Question  of 

tion.  "Why  callest  thou  me  good?"  He 
said;  ''there  is  none  good  but  God."  And 
then,  by  the  kindest  steps,  He  led  the 
young  man  back  to  the  answer  of  the 
real  question  which  lay  in  the  young 
man's  heart. 

Or  take  the  story  of  the  penny.  What 
guile  was  in  the  Herodians'  hearts  as  they 
asked  of  Christ  so  blandly,  "Is  it  lawful 
to  pay  tribute  to  Caesar?"  A  careless  an- 
swer might  have  loaded  our  Christianity 
with  a  weight  it  could  never  carry.  Jesus 
saw  the  trick,  and  asked  the  questioners 
for  a  coin.  Then,  holding  it  before  them 
until  He  could  make  them  dig  the  grave 
of  their  own  argument.  He  exposed  their 
wretched  hypocrisy  and  falsehood. 

Or,  again,  take  that  inimitable  scene 
beside  the  Temple.  Before  Jesus  stood  an 
angry  group  and  a  shrinking  "scarlet 
woman."  In  the  shame  of  her  crime  they 
had  apprehended  her.  With  brutal  hands 
and  many  a  curse  they  had  dragged  her 
to  Him.    And  now,  with  a  heartless  cita- 


An  Ancient  Lawyer  57 

tion  of  the  law,  they  looked  up  into  the 
Master's  face,  demanding,  "What  sayest 
thou  ?"  For  answer  He  stooped  and  wrote 
upon  the  ground.  To  men  as  black  as  she, 
to  men  who  were  themselves  the  cause  of 
shame  such  as  hers  that  moment,  to  men 
of  every  age,  He  had  not  a  word  to  say 
until,  wearied  with  their  asking,  He  drew 
Himself  up  to  a  height  that  seemed  to 
reach  the  stars,  and  answered,  "He  that 
is  without  sin  among  you,  let  him  first  cast 
a  stone  at  her." 

So  with  the  story  of  the  lawyer.  Jesus 
did  not  answer  this  legal  cross-examiner 
directly.  He  refused  to  honor  a  dishonest 
question.  He  who  was  all  patience  with 
earnest  seekers  for  the  truth,  however 
blundering  their  method,  and  who  took 
up  into  His  heart  men's  most  audacious 
queries,  had  only  a  rebuke  for  this  an- 
cient caviler.  Not  to  forbid  inquiry,  but 
to  clarify  men's  minds ;  not  to  discourage 
one  honest  questioner  but  to  make  him 
honest  in  his  search;  not  to  deny  God's 


58  The  Question  of 

face  to  any  seeker,  but  rather  to  let  that 
face  more  luminously  appear,  Jesus  de- 
clined to  say  the  thing  this  lawyer  came 
to  hear. 

Suppose  Jesus  had  named  the  "great 
commandment  in  the  law."  Then  He 
would  have  unnecessarily  offended  some 
sincere  hearers.  None  was  so  considerate 
of  men's  traditions  as  He  who,  on  occa- 
sions, could  show  their  weakness.  To 
disturb  an  article  of  faith  is  always  peril- 
ous. It  is  easier  to  take  men's  anatomies 
apart  and  put  them  together  again  than 
to  dissect  their  creeds  without  demoraliz- 
ing the  owners. 

Take  the  vivid  picture  in  the  third  chap- 
ter of  Genesis.  We  call  it  the  story  of  the 
"fall."  What  caused  the  "fall?"  Simply 
the  unsettling  of  a  code.  Adam  and  Eve 
were  forbidden  to  eat  the  fruit  of  a  cer- 
tain tree.  Obedience,  to  them,  meant  one 
particular  thing.  The  law  was  summed 
up  in  abstention  from  one  indulgence. 
They  were  safe,  according  to  the  story,  so 


An  Ancient  Lawyer  59 

long  as  they  kept  that  unique  command. 
And  the  damage  was  done  by  a  simple 
undermining  of  their  faith.  When  the 
serpent  had  persuaded  them  that  the  com- 
mandment was  not  fair,  the  tragedy  began. 
Banishment  was  the  penalty  for  souls  that 
doubted  the  imperative  of  law. 

It  has  been  so  ever  since.  We  take 
away  no  man's  traditions  except  at  the 
gravest  risk.  Moses  found  that  emanci- 
pated Hebrews  were  far  more  troublesome 
than  Hebrews  in  Pharaoh's  brickyards. 
Luther  was  often  chagrined  by  the  ex- 
travagance and  antinomianism  of  early 
Protestants.  In  grief  and  shame  we 
Americans  have  lately  proved  that  an 
anarchist  in  America  is  most  dangerous 
of  all.  The  moment  a  soul  begins  to  feel 
a  relaxing  of  the  fetters,  it  wants  to  throw 
off  all  constraint. 

This  is  what  is  breaking  the  hearts  of 
many  parents.  Their  children  have  come 
to  the  age  at  which  they  doubt  the 
wisdom  of  certain  traditions.     For  the 


60  The  Question  of 

first  few  years  a  child  believes  anything 
that  is  told  him.  He  never  doubts  that 
Santa  Claus  comes  down  the  chimney. 
He  will  hang  his  head  while  you  look  un- 
der his  tongue  for  evidences  of  falsehood. 
He  expects  the  bears  to  carry  him  away 
if  he  fails  of  obedience.  He  looks  up  to 
your  commandment  as  the  Jews  did  to  the 
smoking  mount.  He  accepts  the  code  you 
teach.  But  the  day  comes  in  which  he  no 
longer  looks  for  presents  down  the  fire- 
place. He  knows  that  falsehood  leaves  no 
mark  beneath  the  tongue.  He  no  longer 
fears  the  bears.  Then  please  God  he  may 
not  drift  from  all  the  moorings  of  virtue ! 
For  every  discarded  tradition,  a  new  law 
must  come  into  view.  With  every  removal 
of  old  foundation,  a  new  stone  must  go 
into  place.  Commandments  upon  the 
''tables  of  the  heart"  must  substitute  for 
outward  rules  whose  catholicity  has  gone. 
Here  also  is  the  explanation  of  a  cer- 
tain chapter  in  the  history  of  the  Meth- 
odist Episcopal  Church.     As  everybody 


An  Ancient  Lawyer  61 

knows,  we  have  a  Disciplinary  paragraph 
against  amusements.  What  with  the  in- 
judicious devotion  of  its  friends  and  the 
sneering  comments  of  its  foes,  we  have 
not  been  allowed  to  forget  it.  It  might 
almost  appear  that  the  chief  end  and  aim 
of  our  denomination  were  to  wave  a  red 
flag  at  certain  crossings  of  the  way.  Few 
believe  that  the  now  celebrated  section  was 
inspired,  and  thousands  of  loyal  Meth- 
odists wish  devoutly  it  had  never  seen  the 
day.  Then  why  not  be  rid  of  it  at  once? 
Ah,  "there's  the  rub."  Simply  because 
a  majority  of  our  wisest  legislators  have 
feared  that  such  action  would  be  misun- 
derstood. A  few  years  since,  when  the 
subject  was  under  discussion  at  the  Gen- 
eral Conference  and  the  elision  seemed 
likely  to  be  made,  the  newspapers  came 
out  with  the  announcement  that  "Meth- 
odists were  about  to  introduce  dancing 
and  card-playing  as  a  means  of  building 
up  the  Church."  The  fact  is  that  any  re- 
treat from  our  present  position  is  bound 


62  The  Question  of 

to  be  misconstrued.  The  present  genera- 
tion is  worldly  enough  without  any  direct 
encouragement  from  the  Church.  All 
that  some  young  folks  need  is  a  chance  to 
get  the  bit  between  their  teeth — they  will 
career  ingloriously.  Personally,  I  believe 
the  paragraph  to  be  inoperative;  and  be- 
cause inoperative,  I  would  take  it  out  of 
the  way.  But  I  respect  the  opinion  of 
those  churchmen  who,  in  their  devotion 
to  this  rule,  are  simply  making  a  stand 
against  the  fearful  undertow  of  modern 
worldliness. 

I  see  by  the  papers  that  the  Raines  law 
is  likely  to  be  overhauled  by  this  winter's 
Legislature.  God  knows  it  ought  to  be. 
It  has  worked  outrageously.  It  has  en- 
larged the  saloon  into  a  house  of  infamy. 
It  has  facilitated  the  traffic  in  human 
souls.  It  has  seen  more  violations  than 
any  previous  law.  And  yet  the  fact  is 
that  the  Raines  law,  with  all  its  technical 
shortcomings,  stands  theoretically  against 
the  liquor  business.     It  aimed,  not  to  ex- 


An  Ancient  Lawyer  63 

pand,  but  to  curb.  It  renders  certain 
phases  of  the  trade  illegal.  It  meant  to 
make  it  harder  for  a  young  man  to  go 
astray.  It  sought  to  guard  our  Sabbath. 
And  there  will  be  a  chorus  of  protest,  from 
all  over  the  Empire  State,  at  any  legisla- 
tion which  looks  like  letting  down  the 
bars.  Better,  say  many,  the  influence  of 
a  poor  restrictive  law  than  the  absence  of 
all  restraint.  Letting  down  the  bars  is 
perilous  business.  Most  folks  are  only 
grown-up  children. 

Or,  take  the  case  of  modern  skepticism. 
Grant  that  Ingersoll  was  right;  he  did 
more  harm  than  a  thousand  preachers  can 
counteract.  He  encouraged  men  to  loosen 
their  hold  on  the  guard  rails  of  religion. 
He  made  them  doubt  the  realities  of  faith. 
He  helped  them  sneer  at  the  sanctions  of 
the  law.  He  taught  the  right  of  a  man 
to  dispose  of  his  own  life — and  a  wave  of 
suicide  followed  the  wake  of  his  lecture 
craft.  Ah,  friends,  you  can  never  unsettle 
a  man's  faith  without  the  gravest  peril. 


64  The  Question  of 

Once  loosen  his  grip  and  the  "descent  to 
Avernus"  is  so  "easy/'  he  may  never 
catch  hold  again.  Better  believe  some 
falsehood  with  the  truth  than  be  utterly 
unbelieving — which  is  the  vastest  lie. 

Here  is  the  damage  of  a  little  book  like 
The  Philistine.  Elbert  Hubbard  writes 
w^ith  a  pointed  pen.  He  says  some  noble 
things.  He  rakes  the  dead  leaves  fear- 
lessly. But  a  "periodical  of  protest"  which 
would  usher  in  a  reign  of  light  by  an  ex- 
tinction of  the  tapers  that  have  beaconed 
humanity  thus  far;  which  holds  up  to 
ridicule  men's  strongest  ethical  restraints, 
and  takes  its  fling  at  the  veriest  sanctities 
of  common  life,  is  an  unsafe  guide  of 
thought.  Iconoclasm  is  the  meanest  busi- 
ness to  which  a  mortal  ever  descends. 

I  have  always  been  ashamed  of  that 
chapter  in  Church  history.  Some  one 
says  of  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  that  he 
was  an  iconoclast  who  "took  down  men's 
ideals  so  gently  it  seemed  an  act  of  wor- 
ship."    But    such    a    hand    may    be    as 


An  Ancient  Lawyer  65 

heartless  as  any  ruffian's,  if  it  takes  down 
and  puts  nothing  in  the  stead.  This  is 
the  meanness  of  infideHty.  Let  us  make 
sure,  then,  that  we  disturb  no  sanctity 
until  we  can  substitute  a  better.  Let  us 
leave  men  their  traditions  unless  we  can 
offer  more  holy  shrines  at  which  to 
worship. 

But  there  was  a  second  reason  for  not 
naming  the  "great  commandment  in  the 
law."  Men  would  have  used  it  unfairly 
against  each  other.  Suppose  Jesus  had 
told  the  lawyer  that  the  sixth  command- 
ment was  the  "great  commandment  in  the 
law:"  the  lawyer  might  have  gone  away 
to  grade  every  sin  by  that.  He  would 
probably  have  excused  himself  for  irrev- 
erence and  licentiousness  and  theft,  on 
the  ground  that  he  was  keeping  the  "great 
commandment."  And  he  would  have 
condemned  every  citizen  who  failed  to  put 
the  sixth  commandment  first.  Anyway, 
that  is  just  what  mankind  has  always 
tried  to  do — to  scale  all  evil  by  some  par- 


66  The  Question  of 

ticular  commandment  which  is  rigorously 
kept. 

Here,  for  example,  is  a  man  who  is 
"long"  on  virtue  and  ''short"  on  kind- 
ness. •  His  great  commandment  is  integ- 
rity of  conduct.  He  can  be  depended 
upon  to  keep  his  contracts.  He  would 
never  wittingly  defraud  a  penny.  He 
holds  every  wanton  thought  in  irons.  He 
guards  his  honor  with  unwinking  eye. 
But  when  you  have  said  this  much  you 
have  said  it  all.  He  is  an  automaton — 
and  squeaks.  He  knows  nothing  about 
the  lubricant  of  life.  He  can  see  no  good- 
ness in  the  great  throbbing  heart  which 
sometimes  makes  a  slip.  How  a  man  can 
get  drunk  or  prove  unchaste,  he  cannot 
understand.  He  has  no  gentleness  for 
Magdalens  and  wantons. 

On  the  other  hand  is  a  man  of  tender 
sympathies  and  brimming  heart.  He  is 
always  running  amuck  of  legal  standards. 
He  gives  away  so  much  money  that  he 
cannot  meet  his  note  when  it  falls  due. 


An  Ancient  Lawyer  67 

He  is  prey  to  a  thousand  temptations  on 
the  side  of  his  greatest  strength.  But 
what  does  he  ci.re  so  long  as  he  keeps 
open  heart  to  all  appeals.  Let  him  be 
generous-spirited,  and  it  will  not  matter 
even  if  he  does  take  a  glass  too  much  or 
break  his  domestic  vows.  His  great  com- 
mandment is  liberality. 

These  types  stand  continually  apart, 
misjudging  and  misjudged,  each  holding 
his  great  commandment  over  the  other's 
head.  Henry  Ward  Beecher  said,  in  his 
inimitable  way:  "Each  one  of  us  must 
have  a  chimney  through  which  to  blow 
his  smoke.  Every  man  has  to  have  some- 
thing to  damn."  With  the  Calvinist  it 
used  to  be  the  Arminian,  and  with  the 
Methodist  the  Baptist.  With  the  Free- 
trader it  was  the  Protectionist,  and  with 
the  Expansionist  the  "Anti."  With  the 
warm-blooded  citizen  it  is  the  cold-blood, 
and  with  the  doctrinaire  the  man  of  a 
practical  turn.  In  the  Church  it  has  some- 
times been  the  ritualist  against  the  evan- 


68  The  Question  of 

gelical,  the  ascetic  against  the  pleasure 
lover,  the  second  blessing  against  the  first. 
Such  is  the  spirit  which  has  filled  the 
world  with  so  great  bitterness ;  which  has 
sundered  churches  and  parted  friends. 

That  is  a  great  scene  in  The  Crisis 
where  the  Colonel  and  his  lifelong  friend 
agree  to  separate.  A  dogma  of  govern- 
ment had  come  between  them,  and  each 
turned  away  with  breaking  heart,  simply 
because  his  "great  commandment"  was 
not  the  other's.  May  God  forgive  us! 
Who  gave  us  the  right  to  play  pope?  I 
have  more  respect  for  that  venerable  one 
across  the  sea  than  for  the  ten  thousand 
self-constituted  popes  here  at  home.  Who 
made  any  one  of  us  a  ''judge  and  a  di- 
vider" between  brethren?  Jesus  refused 
that  function  for  Himself,  and  when  a 
lawyer  came  to  ask  it  Jesus  declined  to 
name  the  "great  commandment."  It  has 
never  been  named,  and  we  thoroughly  ex- 
ceed our  function  when  we  attempt  to  tell 
men  what  it  is. 


An  Ancient  Lawyer  69 

But  I  may  mention  a  third  unwisdom 
of  doing  what  the  lawyer  asked.  Times 
change,  and  the  great  excellence  of  one 
generation  is  the  pitfall  of  another.  The 
specific  legislation  of  the  present  age  may 
not  at  all  meet  the  requirements  of  the 
next.  The  Methodist  Discipline  contains 
a  warning  against  slaveholding.  It  was  a 
solemn  warning  some  fifty  years  ago,  but 
it  is  hardly  worth  the  room  it  takes  in  the 
Discipline  of  to-day.  John  Wesley  rec- 
ommended all  his  preachers  to  rise  at  four 
o'clock  in  the  morning  that  they  might 
spend  the  first  hour  of  the  day  in  medita- 
tion and  prayer.  The  suggestion  was  un- 
doubtedly wise  for  an  age  in  which  folks 
went  to  bed  with  the  chickens.  But  had 
Wesley  lived  in  a  day  of  Welsbach  burn- 
ers and  incandescent  lamps  he  might  have 
revised  the  scheme. 

There  was  a  day  of  riotous  emotion- 
alism in  the  Church:  to-day  we  are  in 
greater  danger  of  petrifaction.  William 
of  Orange  was  a  patron  saint  in  his  gen- 


70  The  Question  of 

eration,  but  he  would  have  to  learn  chas- 
tity before  he  could  expect  the  same 
reverence  to-day.  Even  a  Cromwell  would 
need  amendment  in  certain  particulars  if 
he  were  to  step  down  into  our  modern 
parlors.  New  conditions  demand  new 
laws.  The  guns  of  a  hundred  years  ago 
are  obsolete  to-day.  Each  succeeding  age 
must  make  its  own  weapons  of  defense. 

But  what  was  the  reply  made  by  Jesus 
to  the  lawyer  ?  'Thou  shalt  love  the  Lord 
.  .  .  and  thy  neighbor  as  thyself ."  Refus- 
ing to  single  out  a  special  ''great  com- 
mandment," Jesus  gave  a  general  law 
which  forever  includes  all  others.  De- 
clining to  exalt  one  virtue  at  the  expense 
of  others,  He  made  the  whole  fabric  sa- 
cred. There  was  to  be  no  boasting  of 
man  against  his  neighbor,  so  far  as  Jesus 
could  prevent.  All  lawbreakers  were  pro- 
nounced forever  one — the  miser  and  prod- 
igal together,  the  sensualist  and  the 
ascetic,  the  impure  mind  and  the  unkind 
tongue.    There  was  to  be  no  digging  for 


An  Ancient  Lawyer  71 

motes  in  a  neighbor's  eye  while  beams  are 
in  our  own. 

Let  us  remember,  then,  the  nature  of 
the  law  which  Christ  enjoined:  'Thou 
shalt  love."  A  man  may  keep  every  com- 
mandment literally  and  yet  dishonor  God. 
There  is  room  between  the  meshes  of  the 
law  for  a  soul  to  drop  into  hell.  And  the 
transgressor  of  technical  commandments 
may  be  a  very  saint  withal.  You  can  no 
more  appraise  the  quality  of  manhood  by 
its  outward  conformity  to  rule,  than  you 
can  determine  the  grade  of  precious  ore  by 
putting  it  on  the  scales.  Discipleship  is 
not  so  much  a  matter  of  particular  sub- 
missions as  of  obedience  to  the  spirit  of 
the  law.  Every  life  must  be  lived  to  God. 
He  is  the  final  judge  of  every  action.  And 
love  is  the  only  atmosphere  in  which  a 
soul  can  thrive. 


IV 

THE   QUESTION   OF   A  TEMPTED 
LEADER 


"Beware 
Of  entrance  to  a  quarrel,  but  being  in, 
Bear  't  that  the  opposed  may  beware  of  thee. 
Give  every  man  thy  ear,  but  few  thy  voice; 
Take  each  man's  censure,  but  reserve  thy  judg- 
ment. 

This  above  all :  to  thine  own  self  be  true, 
And  it  must  follow,  as  the  night  the  day. 
Thou  can'st  not  then  be  false  to  any  man." 

— Shakespeare. 

"Ah,  but  a  man's  reach  should  exceed  his  grasp, 
Or  what's  heaven  for?" — Browning. 

"Till  we  all  come,  in  the  unity  of  the  faith,  and 
of  the  knowledge  of  the  Son  of  God,  unto  a  perfect 
man,  unto  the  measure  of  the  stature  of  the  full- 
ness of  Christ." — Paul. 


*'WHY   SHOULD   I  COME   DOWN?*' 

The  story  of  Nehemiah  is  alive  with 
dramatic  situations  and  vivid  pictures. 
We  get  our  first  glimpse  of  the  man  at 
the  time  of  his  reception  of  bad  news  con- 
cerning his  native  city.  Jerusalem  lay 
unwalled,  defenseless.  Most  men  would 
have  shed  a  few  cheap  tears  and  congrat- 
ulated themselves  upon  their  better  for- 
tune. But  Nehemiah  took  his  country- 
men's sorrow  upon  his  heart.  He  could 
not  forget  Jerusalem.  Court  splendor  at 
Shushan  served  only  to  make  a  back- 
ground for  the  distressing  picture  of  his 
native  city.  What  was  he,  to  be  enjoying 
luxury  while  his  kinsmen  were  in  want? 
He  carried  the  traces  of  his  heartache 
even  into  the  presence  of  the  king.  Manly 
grief  is  always  moving.  The  king's  heart 
was  touched,  and  after  the  recital  of  the 
story  a  safe  conduct  to  Jerusalem  was 
promised. 

75 


76  The  Question  of 

In  due  time,  accordingly,  Nehemiah  ar- 
rived at  the  holy  city  and  quietly  began 
his  work.  Followers  were  plenty  when 
once  a  leader  had  stepped  forth.  The  peo- 
ple needed  only  a  courageous  soul  to  fire 
their  own.  Thousands  of  hands  were 
ready  for  the  task,  and,  almost  before  the 
enemy  realized  that  anything  noteworthy 
was  happening,  the  walls  were  well  under 
way.  Not  long,  however,  could  such  a 
work  go  unchallenged.  The  usual  weap- 
ons were  brought  into  play.  Scorn,  ridi- 
cule, open  opposition  were  successively 
applied.  And  when  none  of  these  availed 
to  stay  the  progress  of  the  work,  the 
meanest  weapon  men  ever  use  was 
launched.  By  plausible  agreement  Nehe- 
miah was  to  be  led  into  a  trap.  Nehemiah 
saw  the  danger  and  sent  back  a  word  that 
must  have  burned  Sanballat's  ears :  'T  am 
doing  a  great  work.  .  .  .  Why  should 
the  work  cease  while  I  .  .  .  come  down  ?" 

And  it  is  with  the  spirit  and  signifi- 
cance of  that  reply  that  we  are  specially 


A  Tempted  Leader  77 

concerned  just  now.  A  good  many  cen- 
turies have  gone  since  Nehemiah  phrased 
the  words.  The  work  to  which  he  re- 
ferred has  long  since  crumbled  into  ruin. 
Not  even  the  heroic  leadership  of  a  man 
like  Nehemiah  could  indefinitely  postpone 
the  doom  of  a  time-serving  and  faithless 
people.  Jerusalem  is  to-day,  what  the  an- 
cient prophets  declared  it  would  be,  a 
"hissing"  and  a  "heap."  But  the  spirit 
of  such  a  man  is  the  indefeasible  property 
of  the  world.  It  is  forever  passing  into 
other  souls,  becoming  incarnate  in  other 
lives.  Great  souls  have  an  immortality 
on  earth.  Plato  influences  more  millions 
to-day  than  he  did  units  in  his  day. 
Seneca  and  Epictetus  are  continually  re- 
produced. A  thousand  years  from  now 
men  will  be  fusing  their  manhood  at  the 
altar  fires  of  Washington  and  Lincoln. 
So,  after  twenty-three  hundred  years,  Ne- 
hemiah appeals  to  and  masters  us ;  a  man 
of  courage,  conviction,  conquest;  stand- 
ing beside  us  in  the  interminable  struggle 


78  The  Question  of 

of  the  ages;  pointing  the  path  tO'  power 
and  peace.  The  contest  is  the  same  to- 
day it  was  two  thousand  years  ago.  All 
loyalty  and  faith  are  one.  And  he  who 
triumphed  over  Sanballat  and  Geshem  in 
old  Jerusalem  may  speak  the  heartening 
word  to  us  who  battle  still. 

Three  lessons,  then,  I  learn  from  this 
ancient  question.  First,  that  no  cause, 
however  holy,  escapes  antagonism.  On 
the  contrary,  the  higher  and  holier  the  end 
to  be  attained,  the  fiercer  the  struggle  to 
its  attainment.  I  suppose  it  was  so  in 
Nehemiah's  creed.  He  had  come  from 
Shushan  expecting  to  be  maligned.  He 
knew  that  no  stone  would  be  laid  except 
in  the  face  of  open  opposition.  He  count- 
ed upon  the  fury  of  Sanballat  and  Tobiah. 
He  recognized  beforehand  what  some  of 
us  have  to  learn  as  a  terrible  surprise — 
that  no  righteous  work  goes  long  un- 
challenged. 

John  Fiske  has  an  exquisite  passage  in 
which  he  describes  himself  as  looking  out 


A  Tempted  Leader  79 

over  a  daisied  f.eld  in  early  June,  wooed 
by  its  marvelous  voices,  hushed  by  its  ten- 
der spell,  reverent  before  the  ever  new 
miracle  of  life ;  but  just  then  remembering 
the  * 'robbery  utterly  shameless  and  mur- 
der utterly  cruel"  by  which  all  the  beauty 
had  come  to  be.  Such  is  the  bewilderment 
which  overtakes  many  of  us  as  we  look 
out  across  the  world.  In  earth,  in  sea  (in 
sky,  for  aught  we  know),  the  same  piti- 
less struggle  is  going  on.  No  man  may 
cultivate  a  flower  or  grace  or  public  spirit, 
unhindered.  Antagonism  is  the  law  of 
creation. 

I  remember  my  anger  at  my  first  dis- 
covery of  this  law  in  my  garden.  I  had 
forgotten  all  about  it  in  the  delight  of 
being  the  possessor  of  a  little  half-acre 
farm.  I  did  all  the  things  agricultural 
my  neighbors  said  I  should  do.  I  had 
the  soil  well  plowed  and  harrowed.  I 
planted  and  worked  over  it  with  all  the 
enthusiasm  an  amateur  puts  into  his  first 
attempts.    I  counted  beforehand  the  num- 


80  The  Question  of 

ber  of  peas  and  strawberries  and  potatoes 
I  might  expect.  But  when  I  found  weeds 
coming  up  ahead  of  the  precious  seed; 
when  there  appeared  to  be  one  robin,  at 
least,  for  every  strawberry,  and  a  particu- 
lar bug  for  every  vine;  when  my  apple 
trees  were  festooned  with  worm  nests — 
a  parasite  and  foe  for  every  living  thing 
— my  anger  knew  no  bounds.  I  almost 
doubted  the  wisdom  of  a  Creator  who 
could  permit  such  things  to  be. 

Lift  your  vision  another  range  and  the 
same  aspect  appears.  Evolution  is  a 
synonym  for  age-long,  uninterrupted  con- 
flict. According  to  the  doctrine  of  *'sur- 
vival"  every  living  thing  has  had  to  fight 
for  its  life.  The  scientist  explores  a 
world-wide  Waterloo.  'Tn  order  that 
some  race  of  moths  may  attain  a  certain 
fantastic  contour  and  marking  of  their 
wings  untold  thousands  of  moths  are 
doomed  to  perish  prematurely."  Fancy 
what  it  has  cost  for  the  king  of  the  forest 
to  gain  his  supremacy! 


A  Tempted  Leader  81 

Modern  medical  discovery  is  increas- 
ing the  wonder  that  we  Hve  at  all.  What 
with  germs  in  water  and  microbes  in  the 
air,  with  subtle  poisons  in  the  most  com- 
mon foods  and  insidious  disease  on  every 
hand,  it  is  not  so  much  marvel  that  multi- 
tudes succumb  as  that  anybody  should 
reach  three-score  years  and  ten.  A  man 
might  drive  himself  into  hypochondria  by 
attempting  to  count  the  microscopic  foes 
he  must  meet  and  vanquish  every  day. 
The  ancient  Scripture  grows  more  express- 
ive all  the  while:  ''We  are  fearfully  and 
wonderfully  made."  Each  human  organ- 
ism is  a  battleground  on  which  the  issues 
of  life  and  death  are  fought  out  by  pitiless, 
opposing  armies. 

History  is  merely  another  record  of  the 

same  universal  combat.     It  shames  me  to 

think  that  every  great  reform  has  had  to 

fight  its  way.    You  cannot  name  a  single 

movement  for  the  dignifying  of  manhood 

or  the  sweetening  of  human  life  but  has 

been  stained  with  crimson.    "The  sorrows 
6 


82  The  Question  of~ 

of  Messiah"  are  but  perfect  type  of  what 
every  holy  leader  may  expect,  in  propor- 
tion as  he  succeeds.  Men  talk  sometimes 
about  the  world's  readiness  for  a  sweep- 
ing reform.  The  only  readiness  I  find  is 
the  readiness  of  some  saviors  to  die  for 
it.  I  have  turned  the  pages  of  my  histo- 
ries in  hope  of  discovering  an  example  of 
different  spirit  in  the  reception  of  the 
truth ;  but  this  shameful  fact  appears,  that 
the  world  has  never  had  anything  better 
than  scorn  and  hate  and  torment  for  its 
redeemers.  Properly  speaking,  the  world 
did  not  want  emancipation  or  Protestant- 
ism or  the  Gospel  of  the  Son  of  God.  It 
did  not  know  what  to  do  with  Wilber- 
force  or  Luther  or  Jesus  but  to  antago- 
nize them.  It  has  nothing  better  for  the 
prophets  of  our  day.  He  who  sets  out  to 
bless  the  world  is  likely  to  die  of  broken 
heart.  He  who  preaches  civic  purity  or 
social  kindness  starts  up  all  the  hounds  of 
hell. 

Or  bring  the  truth  still  nearer  home. 


A  Tempted  Leader  83 

The  harder  a  soul  tries  to  be  true,  the 
finer  the  ideal  before  it,  the  sterner  fight 
it  may  expect.  We  are  accustomed  to 
talk  as  if  all  a  man  needed  were  a  strong 
determination  to  be  good :  then  he  might 
expect  to  glide  into  heaven  by  a  sort  of 
law  of  celestial  gravity.  Quite  the  con- 
trary is  the  common  experience  of  man- 
kind. "The  way  of  the  transgressor"  is 
not  so  obviously  "hard"  as  the  way  of  the 
Christian  disciple.  Pilgrim,  in  Bunyan's 
story,  had  a  more  provoking  time  than 
does  the  ordinary  sinner.  It  seems  as  if 
every  announcement  of  moral  purpose 
were  a  virtual  invitation  to  fresh  tempta- 
tion. A  man  never  realizes  how  many 
forms  the  evil  can  assume  until  he  under- 
takes to  walk  with  God.  Church  member- 
ship, in  so  far  as  it  stands  for  a  clean  heart 
and  self-renouncing  manhood,  involves 
new  battlefields. 

A  friend  was  telling  me,  the  other  day, 
of  his  struggle  to  keep  the  faith.  He  had 
been  a  drinking  man,  but  had  been  con- 


84  The  Question  of 

verted  and  joined  the  Church.  The  news 
leaked  out  into  the  ears  of  his  old  cronies. 
They  teased  and  ridiculed  and  threatened, 
and  finally,  when  all  other  efforts  proved 
unavailing,  they  attempted  to  pour  whis- 
ky down  his  throat.  All  of  which  is 
simply  an  exaggeration  of  the  battle  every 
man  has  before  him  when  he  sets  out  to 
keep  himself  "unspotted  from  the  world." 
To  pull  down  some  aspiring  pilgrim  is  the 
consummate  joy  of  hell.  We  need  look 
for  no  easy  road.  Attainment  must  be 
worth  contest.  A  life  of  chastity  costs 
many  a  crucifixion  of  the  flesh.  Honesty 
is  never  a  garden  path.  Sobriety  is  often 
won  by  pain.  The  brow  which  is  most 
like  Jesus'  must  be  proud  to  wear  a  crown 
of  thorns.  We  must  "overcome"  before 
we  may  "sit  down." 

But  this  leads  to  the  second  implication 
of  Nehemiah's  question:  the  conscious- 
ness of  high  appointment  which  alone 
keeps  a  man  from  "coming  down."  Ne- 
hemiah  was  safe  from  the  machinations 


A  Tempted  Leader  85 

of  his  foes  according  to  the  strength  of  his 
conviction  that  he  was  "doing  a  great 
work."  Had  he  not  been  worthily  em- 
ployed he  might  have  made  a  fateful  ap- 
pointment in  the  plain.  Men  naturally 
seek  ease  and  pleasure.  The  soul  that 
preferentially  selects  a  husk  mattress  and 
hard  conditions  is  commonly  a  freak.  We 
tend  to  move  in  lines  of  least  resistance. 
And  whenever  a  man  does  contrariwise, 
just  in  so  far  as  he  sets  himself  against 
the  tide,  he  needs  strong  justification  for 
his  behavior.  There  is  just  one  reasonable 
argument  to  hold  men  and  women  to  their 
tasks — the  tasks  must  be  worth  the  doing. 
Mothers  sometimes  talk  to  me  about 
their  boys.  The  boys  have  time  only  for 
fun  and  mischief.  A  ring  at  the  door  is  a 
signal  to  drop  the  book.  Diligence  is  short- 
lived and  half-hearted  at  the  best.  Let 
mother's  back  be  turned  and  the  boys  are 
off  to  play.  And  the  boys  will  never  do 
materially  better,  they  will  continue  to 
drag  on  through  school  forms,  until  it 


86  The  Question  of 

begins  to  dawn  upon  them  that  a  lesson  is 
more  important  than  a  game  of  ball  or  a 
saunter  through  the  streets.  When  that 
thought  takes  possession  they  will  have  a 
sufficient  answer  to  the  loafers  who  come 
knocking  at  their  door:  "I  am  doing  a 
great  work.  Why  should  ...  I  leave  it 
and  come  down?" 

Men  often  complain  to  me  that  they 
are  not  appreciated  in  their  places  of  em- 
ployment. They  have  no  prospects,  as 
they  say.  I  think  I  can  put  my  finger 
upon  the  reason.  Few  employees  conceive 
the  importance  of  their  part  in  the  busi- 
ness. Their  heads  are  full  of  other  things. 
They  can  hardly  drop  work  quickly 
enough  when  occasion  offers.  They  are 
constantly  planning  how  they  may  retain 
their  positions  on  a  trifle  less  work.  In 
other  words,  missing  the  value  of  that 
which  they  are  set  to  do,  they  are  always 
ready  to  ''come  down."  Business  firms 
are  looking  for  men  of  the  Nehemiah 
stripe — men  so  impressed  with  the  dignity 


A  Tempted  Leader  87 

of  their  work  they  will  not  think  of  ''com- 
ing down." 

Wherever  we  look  the  same  truth  holds 
— the  necessity  of  strong  conviction.  No 
one  is  safe  in  the  presence  of  temptation 
save  as  he  realizes  the  value  of  standing 
firm.  I  notice  that  successful  men,  in  pro- 
portion as  they  have  succeeded,  in  the  de- 
partments in  which  they  have  won  suc- 
cess, have  been  possessed  of  the  idea  that 
the  work  would  "cease"  if  they  "came 
down."  An  eminent  business  man  once 
said  to  me  that  he  often  had  to  choose  be- 
tween business  and  amusement ;  that  again 
and  again  he  had  declined  an  invitation  to 
dinner  or  the  theater,  simply  on  the  score 
that  he  could  not  afford  to  take  the  time 
and  strength  from  business. 

It  was  not  arrogance  that  prompted 
Ericsson  to  say:  "Providence  has  given 
me  greater  abilities  for  use,  within  certain 
limits,  than  to  any  other  mortal."  It  was 
not  arrogance :  it  was  the  sort  of  self-ap- 
preciation a  man  must  have  in  order  to 


88  The  Question  of 

succeed.  No  voice  could  call  Ericsson 
from  his  work  so  long  as  he  held  that  con- 
viction. He  was  doing  too  great  a  work 
to  ''come  down."  Horace  Greeley  de- 
termined in  early  childhood  to  become  a 
printer.  Books  were  his  delight.  He  had 
read  the  Bible  through  by  the  time  he  was 
five  years  old.  While  he  was  still  a  child 
he  was  urged  by  a  neighboring  blacksmith 
to  come  and  learn  the  trade.  "No,  I'm 
going  to  be  a  printer,"  was  the  unequivo- 
cal response.  Nothing  could  swerve  him 
from  that  intention :  no  inducement  was 
great  enough,  no  solicitation  sufficiently 
adroit  to  make  him  forget  his  life  choice, 
and  he  lived  to  become  the  greatest  jour- 
nalist of  his  day.  He  could  not  leave  his 
work  to  ''come  down." 

It  is  the  testimony  of  his  classmates 
that  Wendell  Phillips  had  naturally  a  ter- 
rific temper,  but  that  after  his  conversion 
they  could  never  provoke  him  to  an  ex- 
plosion. Sometimes  they  teased  him  piti- 
lessly, but  he  seemed  to  be  always  guard- 


A  Tempted  Leader  89 

ing  a  treasure ;  holding  a  sacred  fort.  He 
never,  apparently,  lost  the  vision  of  his 
ideal.  He  had  dedicated  his  life  to  God, 
and  he  might  have  taken  up  into  his  lips 
the  vi^ords  of  Nehemiah :  "I  am  doing  a 
great  work.  .  .  .  Why  should  .  .  .  I  .  .  . 
come  down?"  How  Hke  the  thing  that 
Jesus  said  when  one  reproached  Him: 
''Wist  ye  not  that  I  must  be  about  my 
Father's  business?"  The  world's  meat 
had  no  power  over  Him  so  long  as  He 
could  truthfully  affirm :  "My  meat  is  to 
do  the  will  of  Him  that  sent  me."  It  was 
His  sufficient  reply  to  those  who  chal- 
lenged Him :  'T  must  work  the  works  of 
Him  that  sent  me.  As  it  was  His  perfect 
consolation  to  be  able  to  say  in  the  shadow 
of  His  cross :  "I  have  finished  the  work 
which  Thou  gavest  me  to  do." 

There  is  no  other  sane  prescription  for 
Christian  living.  It  is  only  a  truism  to 
affirm  the  worldliness  of  the  Church  in 
the  present  day.  It  is  only  too  obvious 
that  most  church  folks  care  far  more  for 


90  The  Question  of 

a  theatrical  performance  than  for  a  reli- 
gious service;  prefer  a  game  of  whist  to 
a  prayer  hour  any  time;  would  rather 
dance  together  to  the  strains  of  the  latest 
two-step  than  ''sit  together  in  heavenly 
places  in  Christ  Jesus."  No  ordinary  pas- 
tor expects  his  church  members  to  neglect 
any  secular  concern  in  order  to  attend  to 
the  business  of  the  Church.  Let  them  de- 
vote a  small  portion  of  their  leisure  time 
to  the  temporalities  of  the  kingdom  and 
the  average  pastor  is  satisfied.  With  mil- 
lions of  communicants,  Church  member- 
ship is  only  a  badge  to  distinguish  them 
once  a  week.  Such  is  the  modern  trend. 
We  are  bound  to  recognize  and  reckon 
with  it.  There  is  but  one  rational  solu- 
tion. The  reason  our  people  prefer  the 
play  to  the  prayer  meeting  is  that  the 
play  meets  an  admitted  need.  The  reason 
they  shorten  their  prayers  to  lengthen 
their  card  seasons  is  that  prayer  has  be- 
come merely  a  form.  The  reason  our 
young  people  would  rather  dance  than 


A  Tempted  Leader  91 

"wait  upon  the  Lord"  is  that  the  spiritual 
life  has  become  so  dim  and  misty  an  af- 
fair. When  men  tell  me  they  stay  home 
on  Sunday  to  "get  a  rest,"  I  understand 
that  it  is  because  they  rank  bodily  refresh- 
ing so  far  above  the  renewing  of  the  soul. 
And  the  aspect  will  never  change  by 
going  into  hysterics  and  writing  damna- 
tory clauses.  The  present  day  drift  is  the 
legitimate  outcome  of  the  present  day 
creed.  There  will  be  no  turning  of  the 
tide  except  upon  the  basis  of  Nehemiah's 
word.  But  if  men  can  be  brought  to  rate 
the  eternal  above  the  temporal;  if  it  ever 
flashes  upon  them  that  a  lean  soul  is  worse 
than  an  emaciated  body;  if  they  come  to 
see  the  relative  values  of  the  things  of  the 
store  and  the  Kingdom,  there  will  be  a 
new  adjustment,  and  from  rededicated 
hearts  will  be  heard  the  ringing  word : 
'T  am  doing  a  great  work.  .  .  .  Why 
should  the  work  cease  while  I  .  .  .  come 
down?"  A  great  conviction,  only,  can 
keep  men  out  of  the  plain. 


92  The  Question  of 

But  what  was  the  work  which  Nehe- 
miah  considered  so  great?  According  to 
the  context  it  was  constructive  work.  Had 
he  been  merely  going  through  motions  or 
marching  on  dress  parade,  he  could  scarce- 
ly have  affirmed,  "I  am  doing  a  great 
work."  He  was  building  a  wall  about  the 
beloved  city,  adding  security  to  many 
lives,  accomplishing  the  active  will  of 
God.  Constructive  work  is  always  great. 
This  is  the  truth  we  must  press  home 
upon  our  school  children — that  they  are 
building.  This  is  the  thought  with  which 
we  must  fire  the  ambition  of  clerk  and 
scientist — that  they  are  building.  This 
is  the  message  we  must  bring  to  our  flag- 
ging Christian  zeal — that  we  are  building 
— and  that  when  other  foundations  are 
destroyed  our  building  shall  remain. 

The  only  work  that  ever  abides  is  con- 
structive. To  be  busy  is  not  enough. 
Even  the  ant  leaves  a  hill  behind  him. 
The  difference  between  a  honey  bee  and 
a  drone  is  honey.    To  be  negatively  Chris- 


A  Tempted  Leader  93 

tian  is  not  to  be  Christian  at  all.  But  to 
be  positively  Christlike,  to  build  some- 
thing of  loyalty  into  one's  own  soul,  to 
build  helpfulness  into  the  lives  of  others, 
to  build  a  ''good  foundation  against  the 
time  to  come  that  we  may  lay  hold  on 
eternal  life"  is  to  get  the  best  from  two 
worlds.  And  such  is  the  kind  of  devotion 
concerning  which  a  man  is  able  to  say  in 
the  presence  of  all  enticement :  "I  am  do- 
ing a  great  work.  .  .  .  Why  should  .  .  . 
I  ,  .  .  come  down?" 


V 

THE   QUESTION   OF  A  FRIGHTENED 
JAILER 


"When  men  ask  me,  'What  is  salvation?'  I 
say,  Emancipation  from  everything  that  holds 
men  down ;  from  the  bondage  of  matter ;  from  the 
rigor  of  undeveloped  tendencies;  from  all  the  in- 
felicities of  the  lower  nature;  .  .  .  from  low  and 
degraded  forms  of  affection;  from  the  vast  realm 
of  inferiority  into  which  men  are  born,  .  .  .  Sal- 
vation means  to  me  transformation.  It  means  the 
fire  of  the  Holy  Ghost  burning  out  men's  dross. 
...  It  is  positive  energetic  strength.  It  is  man- 
hood in  magnitude.  It  is  the  power  of  God  in 
the  human  soul.  It  is  new  life,  new  being." — 
Beecher. 

"Life  is  immortal;  but  the  method  and  time  of 
evolution  through  which  it  progresses  is  in  our 
own  hands.  Each  of  us  is  bound  to  purify  his 
own  soul  as  a  temple ;  to  free  it  from  egotism ;  to 
set  before  himself,  with  a  religious  sense  of  the 
importance  of  the  study,  the  problem  of  his  own 
life." — Mazzini. 

"I  am  come  that  they  might  have  life,  and  that 
they  might  have  it  more  abundantly." — Jesiis. 


'^WHAT 
MUST  I  DO  TO  BE  SAVED?'* 

There  is  an  attractive  local  color  in  the 
question.  It  was  asked  under  circum- 
stances themselves  dramatic,  suggestive. 
Paul  and  Silas  had  been  roughly  treated 
the  day  before.  Interfering  with  a  nefa- 
rious traffic,  they  had  brought  down  upon 
their  own  heads  a  storm  of  fury.  The 
most  sensitive  spot  in  a  man's  whole 
make-up  is,  oftentimes,  his  purse.  He  will 
bear  any  other  interference  more  grace- 
fully than  interference  with  that.  He  will 
submit  to  a  vivisection  of  his  creed  and  a 
readjustment  of  his  ideals  before  he  will 
allow  a  tampering  with  the  business  meth- 
ods of  his  career.  Thus,  when  Paul  broke 
up  the  unholy  commerce  of  certain  pan- 
ders at  Philippi,  it  was  to  be  expected 
that  the  losers  would  rebel.  And  rebel 
they  did  in  right  heroic  fashion.  With 
the  regulation  Tammany  Hall  appeal 
against  reformers,  they  stirred  the  city 

Y  97 


98  The  Question  of 

into  an  uproar,  and,  bearing  down  upon 
the  magistrates,  secured  a  sentence  of 
lashes  and  confinement  for  Paul  and  Silas. 

Night  fell  at  length  with  Paul  and 
Silas  in  the  common  prison,  their  backs 
all  bruised  and  throbbing,  their  feet  in- 
cased in  stocks,  and  a  typical  jailer  to  jeer 
their  plight  and  guard  them  from  escape. 
As  the  hours  wore  on  the  place  grew  quiet. 
Then  hymns  and  prayers  broke  on  the 
fetid  air.  Then  an  earthquake  burst  all 
bolts  and  shook  off  all  fetters.  Then  the 
jailer  himself  appeared,  with  livid  face 
and  quaking  knees,  withheld  from  turning 
his  sword  against  himself  only  by  Paul's 
reassuring  word.  Then  the  flickering 
light ;  the  hurried  search ;  the  strange  con- 
fession —  and  finally  the  question  with 
which  we  have  to  do  :  "What  must  I  do  to 
be  saved  ?" 

Just  what  the  jailer  meant  it  may  not 
be  possible  to  say.  I  have  sometimes  fan- 
cied he  had  more  reference  to  salvation 
from  civil  wrath  than  from  the  "wrath  of 


A  Frightened  Jailer  99 

the  world  to  come."  He  can  hardly  have 
mounted  to  any  very  lofty  or  spiritual 
conceptions.  Men  do  not  fall  asleep  car- 
nal and  wake  up  at  midnight,  even  with 
the  crash  of  earthquake  in  their  ears,  re- 
fined and  holy. 

One  great  fault  with  the  later  study  of 
the  Bible  is  the  projection  of  finer  mean- 
ing which  certain  phrases  have  come  to 
enfold,  back  into  the  hearts  of  those  who 
spoke  the  phrases  first.  David  sang,  "The 
heavens  declare  the  glory  of  God;"  but 
even  David  could  not  guess  the  full  sig- 
nificance of  his  words  to  the  reverent  as- 
tronomer of  to-day.  Solomon  uttered  a 
terrific  arraignment  of  the  wine  glass, 
but  even  Solomon  with  all  his  wisdom 
could  not  feel  a  resentment  so  deep  and 
divine  as  that  which  blazes  in  many 
breasts  at  the  havoc  and  horror  of  King 
Alcohol  to-day.  Paul  wrote  of  "redeem- 
ing grace,"  and  John  that  "God  is  love;" 
but,  surely,  the  ages  have  done  little  for 
the   enlargement   of   human   hearts   and 


100  The  Question  of 

human  conceptions  if  we  mean  no  more 
by  those  precious  phrases  than  did  the  dis- 
ciples of  nineteen  centuries  ago. 

So  with  the  question  of  the  jailer  at 
Philippi.  Nobody  knows  what  was  in  his 
heart  as  he  asked  what  he  must  do  to  be 
saved.  Perhaps  the  image  of  a  "great 
white  throne"  and  an  all-righteous  Judge 
had  limned  itself  before  his  vision.  Per- 
haps he  felt  the  throb  of  a  power  more 
vital  than  that  of  the  Roman  eagles.  He 
saw  for  the  first  time,  perhaps,  a  new 
realm  of  privilege  and  duty.  He  had 
caught  a  glimpse,  it  may  be,  of  the  eternal 
purposes  of  human  life.  All  this,  and 
more,  may  have  been  in  his  heart  that 
day.  We  cannot  say.  What  interests  us 
particularly  is  this :  that  the  jailer's  ques- 
tion is  a  universal  one  to-day;  that  it  has 
broken  away  from  the  localisms  and  pro- 
vincialisms of  its  setting  to  become  the 
most  vital  interrogatory  in  the  world; 
that  it  means  more  in  earnest  souls  and 
on  reverent  lips  to-day  than  it  could  by 


A  Frightened  Jailer  101 

any  possibility  have  meant  at  Philippi 
nineteen  centuries  ago. 

Talk  about  the  burning  issues  of  the 
day  ?  I  say  there  is  not  one  of  them  which 
appeals  to  so  many  people.  I  might  hope 
to  interest  some  of  you  upon  the  question 
of  civic  good  government.  Others  of 
you  would  be  glad  to  discuss  the  social 
evils  of  our  time.  With  others,  the  ques- 
tion is  what  to  do  with  the  American 
saloon;  with  still  others,  the  treatment  of 
the  emancipated  negro.  Here  one  is  ask- 
ing the  road  to  riches;  there,  one,  the 
path  to  power;  yonder,  a  third,  the  way 
to  be  kind.  We  are,  in  short,  as  variant 
in  our  conceptions  of  the  predominant  is- 
sue of  life  as  we  are  in  literary  taste  or 
the  color  of  our  hair.  But  this  single 
question  asks  itself  throughout  all  ages, 
under  every  sky,  in  every  human  breast: 
''What  must  I  do  to  be  saved?" 

Everyone  reprobates  the  custom  of 
throwing  children  into  the  Ganges.  But 
does  everyone  stop  to  consider  why  the 


102  The  Question  of 

Hindu  mother  commits  such  cruelty? 
She  is  a  mother.  Motherhood  must  have 
borne  into  her  own  heart  somewhat  of 
that  strongest  affection  of  earth.  Because 
the  child  is  hers,  it  must  be  horror  to 
watch  it  die.  Under  other  circumstances 
she  would  give  her  own  life  to  save  the 
child's.  Who  knows  the  smothered  ago- 
nies beside  the  Ganges — Rachels  lament- 
ing their  children  "because  they  are  not," 
mothers  tearing  their  babes  from  their 
bosoms  and  turning  homeward  with  ach- 
ing hearts  ?  Of  the  terrible  paradox  there 
is  just  one  explanation;  in  the  awful 
crime  there  is  just  one  exalting  truth : 
Those  Hindu  mothers  are  trying  to  an- 
swer for  themselves  a  question  which  lay 
in  their  souls  before  their  children  were 
born :  ''What  must  I  do  to  be  saved?" 

Travelers  tell  of  the  howling  dervishes 
of  Arabia ;  of  the  zealots  of  cave  and  jun- 
gle; of  fakirs  who  have  held  one  arm 
aloft  until  that  member  has  withered  to  a 
stump.     These  are  hideous  pictures  for 


A  Frightened  Jailer  103 

us  to  contemplate.  Our  better  spirit  re- 
volts that  such  things  should  be.  But  we 
are  not  to  imagine  them  devoid  of  mean- 
ing. They  are  weird,  grotesque  rephras- 
ings  of  a  question  to  which  no  human 
heart  is  stranger :  ''What  must  I  do  to  be 
saved?" 

Every  year  there  go  swarming  across 
the  hills  and  vales  toward  Mecca  vast 
hosts  of  pilgrims.  Thousands  of  them 
will  never  reach  their  destination.  Other 
thousands  will  die  on  the  homeward  jour- 
ney. Yet  on  they  crowd  toward  Mecca — 
men  dragging  their  weary  bodies  mile 
after  mile  to  wash  them  in  a  filthy  stream 
at  length,  women  giving  up  the  sight  of 
home  and  friends  for  a  glimpse  of  the 
Prophet's  tomb.  A  senseless  spectacle,  we 
call  it.  Not  so.  It  is  intelligible  to  any 
thoughtful  student.  Any  man  ought  to 
be  able  to  spell  it  out  in  the  language  of 
his  own  experience.  Those  Mohamme- 
dans are  only  obedient  to  the  same  im- 
pulse which  drives  us  hither  and  yon— 


104  The  Question  of 

that  ceaseless,  burning  question:  ''What 
must  I  do  to  be  saved?" 

There  are  a  good  many  explanations, 
doubtless,  of  the  power  of  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church.  With  amazing  tenacity- 
she  holds  her  converts.  She  exacts  an 
obedience  which  makes  us  both  proud  and 
ashamed.  What  sums  are  poured  into  her 
coffers  every  year,  while  we  Protestants 
go  begging,  often,  to  raise  enough  money 
to  meet  the  pastor's  claim  and  pay  the 
sexton !  What  church  edifices  she  builds 
out  of  the  earnings  of  day  laborers  and 
domestics,  while  we,  with  all  our  riches, 
must  frequently  be  content  with  barns  and 
sheds  for  public  worship!  It  takes  floods 
and  earthquakes  to  keep  the  good  Catholic 
from  Mass,  whereas  a  cloud  in  the  west 
no  bigger  than  a  man's  hand  is  large 
enough  to  keep  most  Protestants  indoors 
on  Sunday.  In  spite  of  shocks  and  Refor- 
mations and  imperial  decrees,  the  Church 
of  Rome  wields  more  power  to-day  than 
all  the  rest  of  our  denominations  put  to- 


A  Frightened  Jailer  105 

gather.  What  does  it  signify?  Simply 
that  the  Romish  Church,  more  perfectly 
than  any  other  ecclesiastical  establishment 
on  earth,  knows  how  to  meet  that  ageless 
question  of  human  wayfarers :  "What 
must  I  do  to  be  saved  ?" 

But  I  want  to  bring  this  question  still 
closer  home.  Never  mind,  just  now,  about 
the  Hindus  or  Mohammedans  or  Roman 
Catholics.  What  about  the  rest  of  us? 
The  very  same  fact  holds  good.  Con- 
sciously or  unconsciously,  we  spend  a 
good  part  of  our  time  trying  to  find  out 
how  to  be  saved.  I  do  not  now  refer  to 
our  relation  to  the  Church,  but  to  the  un- 
churched experiences  of  life. 

In  nearly  every  city  there  is  a  fund 
called  the  ''conscience  fund."  Only  re- 
cently I  have  seen  statistics  as  to  its  mag- 
nitude in  Greater  New  York.  Dimes, 
dollars,  sometimes  a  hundred,  occasionally 
a  thousand,  come  into  the  city  treasury 
anonymously.  From  people  who  failed 
to    pay    their    taxes — and  other  thieves; 


106  The  Question  of 

from  men  who  had  cheated  their  friends 
and  could  not  be  content  to  keep  the 
money ;  from  perpetrators  of  unnamed  and 
perhaps  unsuspected  crimes,  as  a  sort  of 
belated  penance,  the  fund  keeps  growing. 
The  key  is  very  simple.  These  unknown 
givers  have  been  asking  themselves  the 
question  of  the  Philippian  jailer.  They 
are  afraid  to  live  and  afraid  to  die  with 
blood  money  in  their  possession.  They 
have  not  the  courage — or  the  opportunity, 
perhaps — to  restore  it  openly,  so  they 
make  shifts  with  conscience  by  getting 
rid  of  the  money  as  I  have  said. 

It  would  be  interesting  to  know  the 
motive  springs  behind  the  great  benefices 
and  charities  of  Christendom.  Not  so 
much  in  love  for  others,  as  in  secret  hope 
of  redeeming  one's  own  mistakes,  have 
many  of  our  hospitals  and  asylums  been 
endowed.  I  know  men  who  are  as  surely 
expecting  to  buy  their  way  into  the  King- 
dom with  alms  and  kindness  as  the  Cath- 
olic by  his  penance  or  the  ancient  Roman 


A  Frightened  Jailer  107 

with  a  penny  in  his  dead  hand.  How 
many  times  men  have  hoped  to  answer  sat- 
isfactorily the  jailer's  question  with  a  ton 
of  coal  or  a  Thanksgiving  dinner  to  the 
poor !  Most  benevolence  is  a  sort  of  pen- 
ance— with  a  weather  eye  on  Heaven. 
And  we  should  sever,  I  believe,  the  great 
nerve  of  modern  benefaction  were  we  to 
dissociate  in  men's  minds  their  gracious 
deeds  from  their  future  welfare. 

One  of  our  novelists  tells  of  a  sinner 
who  wore  a  rope  around  his  waist  to  re- 
mind him  of  his  wrong.  Why  to  remind 
him,  except  that  some  day  he  might  ex- 
piate the  crime  and  redeem  his  own  life 
from  destruction? 

Why  is  it  that  so  many  husbands  bring 
home  a  box  of  candy  or  slip  an  extra 
allowance  into  her  hand  after  being  un- 
usually crabbed  to  the  wife?  Because  they 
want  to  wipe  out,  thereby,  the  stain  of 
their  meanness.  ''What  shall  a  man  do 
to  be  saved"  except  he  make  the  sort  of 
reparation  near  at  hand? 


108  The  Question  of 

The  saddest  pilgrims  to  Woodlawn 
Cemetery  are  those  who  go  there,  not  to 
remember,  but  to  forget.  By  devotion 
they  hope  to  discover  the  cup  of  Lethe.  In 
frequent  pilgrimages  they  are  looking  for 
forgiveness.  What  former  ugliness  of 
spirit  they  hope  to  tread  out  by  oft-re- 
turning feet!  What  shame  of  conduct 
they  long  to  efface  in  tears  and  penitence ! 
They  dare  not  look  up  into  the  face  of 
Heaven  until  their  dreary  expiation  is 
complete. 

Or,  take  the  routine  and  denials  of  the 
Christian  life.  Few  would  join  the 
Church  except  to  find  the  pathway  to  sal- 
vation. Few  would  devote  their  time  and 
dollars  to  Church  activity  save  as  means 
of  establishing  their  hope.  Few  would 
turn  to  Jesus  did  He  not  proclaim  Himself 
the  door  to  holiness  and  Heaven.  It  is 
because  He  meets  the  imperious  question 
of  hearts  of  every  age,  that  the  world  is 
strewn  with  His  disciples.  Thus  in 
heathen  rite  and  religious  pilgrimage  and 


A  Frightened  Jailer  109 

Christian  routine,  by  tears  and  agonies 
and  prayers,  that  ancient  question  is  re- 
phrased in  every  land,  by  countless  ques- 
tioners: ''What  must  I  do  to  be  saved?" 

But  what  is  it  to  be  ''saved?"  I  wish 
we  could  forget  our  conventional  concep- 
tions. Words  become  soaked  with  dog- 
matic meaning.  Religious  phrases  grow 
as  stark  and  stale  as  mummies.  Time  was 
when  such  words  and  phrases  were  alive. 
They  walked  and  talked  with  men.  The 
trouble  is  that  they  have  been  killed  and 
stufifed  by  theologians,  until  most  men 
would  as  soon  think  of  turning  to  a  mu- 
seum for  song  and  fragrance  as  to  these 
specimens  of  taxidermist's  art. 

What  is  it  to  be  "saved  ?"  Holland  was 
saved  when  the  waters  of  the  sea  were 
driven  back.  A  ship  is  saved  when  the 
reefs  and  shoals  are  past.  A  house  is  saved 
by  the  streams  that  put  out  its  flame,  or 
the  beams  that  shore  up  its  walls.  A  tree 
is  saved  by  driving  the  vampires  out  of 
its  branches  and  giving  it  sun  and  shower. 


110  The  Question  of 

A  living  organism  is  saved  by  restoring 
the  equilibrium  of  nature,  and  by  prompt- 
ing the  vital  organs  to  do  their  work.  A 
prodigal  is  saved  by  the  memory  of  his 
mother's  face,  or  by  some  sweet  reminder 
from  home.  But  a  soul  is  saved,  accord- 
ing to  our  codes,  by  a  sort  of  forensic, 
factitious  salvation. 

What  havoc  we  have  made  of  a  beauti- 
ful and  vital  process !  I  remember  a  dear 
good  brother  who  never  closed  his  testi- 
mony in  prayer  meeting  without  thanking 
God  for  the  ^ 'great  plan  of  salvation." 
Theologians  are  forever  talking  about  a 
redemptive  ''scheme."  Doubtless  there  is 
a  scheme.  God  works  by  plan,  in  earth 
and  sea  and  sky.  But  I  believe  God's  plan 
is  infinitely  larger  and  more  vital  than  we 
have  ever  guessed.  He  has  a  plan  for  the 
stars,  but  they  move  in  endless  variety 
and  pattern.  He  has  a  plan  for  the  flow- 
ers, yet  science  assures  us  that  no  two 
leaves  are  identical  in  fashion.  He  has  a 
plan  for  the  birds  and  the  seasons,  but 


A  Frightened  Jailer  111 

what  two  birds  or  seasons  were  ever  quite 
the  same?  Perfect  flexibiUty,  perfect 
freedom,  perfect  vitahty  is  in  His  plan, 
until  we  come  to  talk  of  His  method  of 
saving  men.  There  we  tie  Him  to  a  mode, 
and  cripple  Him  with  logic.  How  many 
honest  souls  have  been  driven  away  by  our 
mechanical  Noah's  Ark  idea.  How^  many 
aspirations  have  been  choked  by  making 
God  a  Martinet  of  method.  Jesus  gave 
men  bread;  we  have  put  them  off  with  a 
''plan,"  a  ''scheme." 

I  cannot  see  why  the  saving  of  a  man 
is  so  very  different  in  process  from  the 
saving  of  a  ship  or  tree  or  human  body. 
You  recall  the  day  when  the  Paris  lay  on 
the  famous  Manacles,  a  threatened  wreck. 
Men  are  like  that.  They  have  missed 
their  reckoning.  They  have  gone  ashore. 
If  they  lie  stranded  long  enough,  they  will 
pound  themselves  to  pieces  in  the  storm. 
And  salvation  will  mean  to  them  what  it 
meant  to  the  beautiful  Paris — an  effective 
push  back  into  native  element.     One  of 


112  The  Question  of 

the  sights  which  always  angers  me  is  that 
of  a  withering  tree.  So  many  of  them 
stood  stripped  and  haggard  this  summer 
past.  Men  are  Hke  that,  too.  Among  the 
boughs  worms  have  built  their  nests.  The 
roots  of  life  are  cramped  for  room.  It 
takes  only  a  few  such  seasons  to  ruin  a 
tree  or  a  man.  Then  any  power  which 
banishes  the  worms  and  gives  the  roots  a 
chance  to  grow  is,  to  that  extent,  salva- 
tion. There  are  times,  too,  when  a  heart 
needs  just  the  treatment  accorded  a  hu- 
man body.  It  is  tired  and  sick  and  dis- 
tressed. Not  dogma,  not  conventional 
prescriptions,  but  freshened  life,  is  what 
it  needs.  And  that,  when  it  comes,  is 
salvation. 

What  is  it  to  be  saved?  Go  back  to 
Palestine  and  watch  the  Master.  He  saved 
a  ruler  by  entering  his  house.  He  saved 
a  Magdalen  by  reaching  forth  a  forgiving 
hand.  He  saved  Thomas  by  bearing  with 
his  infirmities  and  doubts.  He  saved 
Peter  by  being  so  much  kinder  than  Peter 


A  Frightened  Jailer  113 

deserved.  He  saved  Paul  by  meeting  him 
upon  the  Damascus  road  and  opening  the 
persecutor's  eyes  to  see  himself.  Ah,  here 
is  the  lesson  we  are  after.  Wherever  im- 
mortal spirits  are  refreshed  and  sent  back 
to  daily  duty,  wherever  minds  are  healed 
of  their  distempers  and  wantonness, 
wherever  prodigals  are  recalled  from  a 
life  of  exile  and  shame  to  the  paths  of  rec- 
titude and  truth,  there,  in  the  measure  of 
its  completeness,  is  salvation. 

But  I  have  not  forgotten  what  was  said 
to  the  Philippian  jailer  in  answer  to  his 
question.  ''Believe  on  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ,  and  thou  shalt  be  saved."  That 
is  the  orthodox,  eternal  answer.  But  how 
is  one  man  saved  by  believing  on  another? 
Not,  by  any  means,  in  the  accepted  the- 
ologic  sense.  There  is  no  such  thing  as 
''imputed  righteousness"  (even  if  Paul 
did  talk  about  it).  I  do  not  believe  that 
Jesus'  merit  was  ever  yet  transferred  to 
the  account  of  another  soul.     Merit  and 

demerit  are  as  untransferable  as  person- 

8 


114  The  Question  of 

ality.  No  man  is  saved  by  believing  that 
Jesus  was  good,  any  more  than  he  is  saved 
by  beheving  that  Napoleon  v^as  great  and 
Nero  a  scoundrel.  A  man  may  take  his 
brother's  place  in  prison ;  he  may  even  die 
for  him,  but  he  cannot  transfer  to  him  his 
own  virtue.  Had  Jesus  died  a  thousand 
deaths.  He  could  not  make  us  decent  apart 
from  our  own  desires  and  cooperation. 

Then  what  is  it  to  "believe  unto  salva- 
tion?" I  think  the  answer  is  not  hard  to 
find.  Raphael  believed  in  Michael  Angelo 
until  the  latter's  genius  bore  fruit  in  the 
former's  brush.  Melanchthon  believed  in 
Luther  until  he  became  fired  with  the 
great  Reformer's  spirit.  Boswell  believed 
in  Johnson  and  became  his  apologist.  The 
army  believed  in  Grant  and  reproduced 
his  courage.  A  boy  believes  in  his  father 
and  learns  to  walk  with  the  same  gait, 
and  to  imitate  his  vices.  And  when  a 
man  believes  in  Jesus  he  simply  waits  so 
eagerly  before  that  life,  so  reverently  bows 
before  its  masteries  and  .genius  that  his 


A  Frightened  Jailer  115 

own  life  takes  on  the  tone  and  quality  of 
Jesus'.  He  has  ''believed  unto  salva- 
tion," as  we  say.  He  is  ''transformed  by 
the  renewing  of  his  mind."  In  the  fire 
of  his  admiration,  "old  things  have  passed 
away." 

There  may  be  various  salvations.  But 
the  one  we  need  to  make  us  fit  to  live,  fit 
to  serve,  and  fit  to  inherit  the  Kingdom  of 
Heaven,  is  the  one  we  learn  just  herei — 
Christlikeness. 


vr 

THE  QUESTION   OF   A  CURIOUS 
DISCIPLE 


"Do  the  duty  which  lies  nearest  thee,  which  thou 
knowest  to  be  a  duty.  Thy  second  duty  will  al- 
ready have  become  clearer." — Carlylc. 

"You  have  a  disagreeable  duty  to  do  at  twelve 
o'clock.  Do  not  blacken  nine,  and  ten,  and  eleven, 
and  all  between,  with  the  color  of  twelve." — 
MacDonald. 

"Whatever  shall  appear  to  be  God's  will,  that 
will  I  do." — Lincoln. 

"Ye  are  my  friends  if  j^e  do  whatsoever  I  com- 
mand you." — Jesus. 


*'LORD, 
WHAT  SHALL  THIS  MAN  DO?*' 

Like  a  shot  out  of  a  gun  came  Peter's 
question.  The  episode  immediately  pre- 
ceding had  been  full  of  stress  and  tension 
for  him.  Three  times  had  Peter  been 
asked  to  affirm  his  love  for  the  Man  he 
had  denied.  Three  times  had  a  beautiful 
obligation  been  laid  upon  him.  Then, 
outlined  against  the  morning  haze  there 
appeared,  under  the  Master's  sketching, 
the  image  of  a  cross  with  an  aged  form 
upon  it — the  coronation  of  Peter's  service. 
And  following  all  a  plain  and  unequivocal 
command;  the  very  same  that  had  sum- 
moned Peter  from  his  nets  three  years 
before,  spoken  now  with  a  new  solemnity 
of  meaning. 

Such  might  have  been  the  end  of  the 
chapter,  had  John  been  further  away. 
Peter  was  not  in  a  talkative  mood.  It  is 
noteworthy  that  this  most  loquacious  of 
the    disciples    had    not    uttered    a    word 

119 


120  The  Question  of 

throughout  the  interview  except  in  answer 
to  Jesus'  questions.  For  once,  at  least,  he 
seemed  crushed  into  silence  by  the  weight 
of  awakened  thought.  He  was  shut  into 
a  sacred  oratory,  to  cry  aloud  from  which 
would  be  profane.  He  had  not  a  misgiv- 
ing or  doubt  or  protest.  God's  will  was 
the  one  thing  he  wanted  henceforth  to  do, 
though  it  conducted  to  a  cross.  But  turn- 
ing, perhaps  mechanically,  his  glance  fell 
upon  a  fellow  disciple,  and  instantly  the 
spell  was  broken.  For  a  moment  again 
Peter  was  his  characteristic  self;  inquisi- 
tive, domineering,  tactless.  For  a  mo- 
ment he  forgot  all  else  in  his  curiosity 
concerning  John,  and  broke  out  in  this 
eager  question:  ''Lord,  .  .  .  what  shall 
this  man  do?" 

I  have  referred  already  to  the  apparent 
artlessness  and  spontaneity  of  Peter's 
question.  It  is  just  the  sort  of  question 
that  most  of  us  would  probably  have 
asked,  for  most  of  us,  like  Peter,  are  curi- 
osity mongers.    There  is  in  human  nature 


A  Curious  Disciple  121 

no  sharper  appetite  than  that  of  inquis- 
itiveness.  Multitudes  would  be  deprived 
of  their  regular  vocation,  were  there  a  law 
against  inquiry.  The  quickest  way  to  se- 
cure an  audience  is  by  appeal  to  the  in- 
stinct of  curiosity.  I  have  seen  sick  cheeks 
flush  and  dull  eyes  kindle  and  physical 
languor  disappear,  while  the  invalid  can- 
vassed some  other  patient's  prospects,  or 
pried  into  an  item  of  current  gossip.  Peter 
was  of  that  turn  of  mind,  and,  immediate- 
ly that  he  had  heard  his  own  destiny  an- 
nounced, he  begged  a  word  concerning 
the  man  whose  face  just  then  appeared. 
It  is  conceivable,  of  course,  that  John  had 
overheard  the  conversation,  or  at  least 
that  Peter  imagined  so.  Possibly  the 
words  were  a  new  and  vigorous  sprout 
from  an  aforetime  rivalry.  Or,  perchance, 
Peter  was  only  sparring  for  time.  At  any 
rate,  his  old  impetuousness  got  the  as- 
cendant, and  he  blurted  out,  "Lord,  .  .  . 
what  shall  this  man  do?" 

Whatever  else  the  words  were  as  Peter 


122  The  Question  of 

uttered  them,  they  were  a  piece  of  gross 
presumption.  Peter  had  just  been  mag- 
nificently forgiven.  He  had  been  treated 
with  tenderness  beyond  his  wildest  hope. 
He  had  been  reinstated  in  his  forfeited  po- 
sition. And,  as  if  to  assure  him  that  all 
cowardice  was  of  the  past,  Jesus  had 
sketched  out  a  scene  of  perfect  heroism,  a 
splendid  testimony,  which  should  crown 
the  denier's  life.  It  would  seem  that  even 
Peter  must  have  respected  the  sanctity 
of  such  a  season.  But  the  old  impetuous- 
ness  got  loose,  and  Peter  became  pre- 
sumptuous. 

How  often  the  "goodness  of  God" 
fails  to  lead  to  anything  better  than  pre- 
sumption. Men  trample  on  kindness  when 
they  would  stand  in  terror  of  the  law. 
They  use  forbearance  to  strain  up  to  some 
fresh  affront.  The  other  day  a  dilapidated 
son  of  Hagar  called  at  the  parsonage  for 
alms.  I  suppose  that  if  I  had  shut  the 
door  in  his  face  he  would  have  gone  away 
quiescent  if  not   respectful.     But   some- 


A  Curious  Disciple  123 

thing  about  his  extremity  appealed  to  me, 
and  I  met  his  prayer  with  help.  I  gave 
him  what  he  asked,  and  more.  I  added  a 
coat  and  a  shirt.  And  when  I  watched 
for  a  glad  look  in  his  eyes,  some  grate- 
ful acknowledgment  of  a  kindness  so 
far  beyond  his  plea,  this,  would  you 
believe  it,  is  what  the  ingrate  said: 
"Say,  mister,  haven't  you  an  overcoat  to 
spare?" 

Housewives  assert  that  the  only  way  to 
keep  domestics  docile  is  to  require  the 
strictest  routine — no  extra  days,  no  spe- 
cial privileges.  And  I  fear  such  is  too 
often  the  fact.  Kindness  must  trickle 
through  a  fine  sieve,  else  it  may  carry  a 
good  servant  off  her  feet.  Instead  of 
being  prompted  to  greater  diligence  and 
care,  she  accepts  the  thoughtfulness  as  an 
opening  to  increasing  demands.  Some 
friends  of  mine  were  telling  me  recently 
that  they  used  to  let  the  cook  off  every 
Sunday  before  noon,  and  pay  her  train 
fare  to  New  York,  and  only  insist  that 


124  The  Question  of 

she  I'eturn  to  wash  the  supper  dishes.  It 
was  only  a  httle  while,  however,  before 
she  resented  all  restraint  and  informed 
her  mistress  she  would  come  home  when 
she  got  ready. 

I  am  sure  I  have  opened  a  matter  which 
perplexes  many  a  parent.  What  a  beauti- 
ful world  it  would  be  if  no  son  ever  took 
advantage  of  his  mother's  gentleness,  or 
outraged  his  father's  confidence.  I  see 
parents  bankrupting  their  very  souls  to 
conquer  their  children  by  love.  Yet  here 
is  the  brutal  fact :  rarely  does  a  son  or 
daughter  grow  best  under  that  regime. 
Long-suffering  is,  too  often,  the  quality 
which  gets  itself  imposed  upon.  Forgive- 
ness is  abused  because  it  is  so  free.  Love 
is  often  worked  like  a  town  pump,  by 
careless,  unworthy  hands.  Tenderness 
makes  more  dolts  than  heroes,  sometimes. 
The  climax  of  many  a  mother's  sacrificial 
life  is  to  be  turned  out  of  doors  by  an  un- 
grateful child.  I  do  but  voice  the  bitter 
experience  of  countless  heart-broken  par- 


A  Curious  Disciple  125 

ents  when  I  affirm  that  love  can  be  too 
kind. 

Our  commonwealth  is  smarting  beneath 
the  same  chagrin.  Every  generous  soul 
rejoices  in  the  beautiful  lenities,  the  splen- 
did privileges  which  constitute  our  Amer- 
ican dower.  It  is  glorious  to  know  that 
under  no  other  government  beneath  the 
skies  are  liberties  so  rich  and  opportuni- 
ties so  choice.  But  what  patriot  is  he  who 
does  not  also  know  that  our  national  char- 
ity is  provocative  of  rankest  evils  ?  Social 
anarchy,  municipal  misgovernment,  un- 
conscionable trusts  are  abuses  which  grow 
fastest  under  the  benignant  rule  of 
democracy. 

So  I  get  back  to  the  truth  of  Peter's 
presumption.  Had  Jesus  dealt  with  him 
according  to  his  desert,  Peter  might  never 
have  ventured  the  impertinence  of  the 
text.  Had  he  been  compelled  to  sue  for 
forgiveness,  like  Henry  before  the  Palace 
at  Canossa,  he  might  have  prized  it  when 
it  came.    Because  Jesus  forgave  him,  even 


126  The  Question  of 

before  he  asked,  and  readmitted  him  to 
fellowship,  and  promised  him  a  certain 
preeminence  of  service,  Peter  used  the 
added  grace  to  do  a  thing  he  otherwise 
might  not  have  dared — to  challenge  the 
destiny  of  John.  This  is  the  disposition 
which  often  makes  us  ashamed.  Instead 
of  leading  us  to  repentance  ''the  goodness 
of  God  leadeth"  to  all  manner  of  pre- 
sumption and  violent  abandon.  Anti- 
nomianism  is  the  name  of  a  famous  chap- 
ter in  church  history,  in  which  men  used 
the  grace  of  God  to  defile  themselves  with 
sin.  Antinomianism  in  every  age  is  one 
result  of  the  boundless  compassion  of  God. 
Irregularities  men  would  scarcely  practice 
were  the  Lord  to  "mark  iniquity ;"  impie- 
ties they  would  not  venture  if  every  im- 
piety were  punished ;  insolence  they  would 
never  offer  to  a  pitiless  and  dreadful 
heaven,  they  continually  reveal  because 
their  God  is  good. 

Consider  certain  matters  of  church  dis- 
cipline.   It  is  the  shameful  fact  that  many 


A  Curious  Disciple  127 

church  members  would  be  more  dutiful 
and  earnest  under  the  old  regime.  If  the 
''terrors  of  the  Lord"  were  still  thunder- 
ously announced,  if  the  pit  were  kept  well 
in  view,  if  the  ''straitness"  of  the  gate  and 
the  "narrowness"  of  the  way  were  still 
proclaimed,  we  should  be  faithful  in  a 
hundred  particulars,  where  now  we  are 
reckless  or  slack.  We  have  not  been  able 
to  bear  releasement  from  our  fears.  Men 
get  intoxicated  with  God's  goodness.  Be- 
cause he  requires  so  little  they  offer  Him 
still  less.  "Where  is  mother's  share?" 
was  asked  of  a  little  child  who  was  divid- 
ing an  apple  between  her  friends.  "O, 
mother  don't  want  any,"  was  the  reply; 
^'mother  always  goes  without."  Forgetful 
of  herself,  forgotten  by  her  child,  such  is 
many  a  mother's  portion.  Thus  men  leave 
God  out  of  their  calculations.  His  part 
of  their  time  is  the  part  that  must  not  be 
claimed.  His  demand  upon  their  money 
must  not  be  rigorously  pressed.  He  must 
stand  aside  for  pleasure,  greed,  and  every- 


128  The  Question  of 

thing  of  self — so  reason  men ;  and  let  the 
tenderest  demand  of  all  be  most  heart- 
lessly ignored. 

But  there  was  more  than  presumption 
in  Peter's  question ;  or,  rather,  his  effront- 
ery took  definite  shape.  For  one  thing,  he 
dared  to  adduce  the  case  of  John.  You 
might  think  Peter  would  have  been  con- 
tent to  "work  out  his  own  salvation  with 
fear  and  trembling."  And  indeed  such 
might  have  been  the  case,  had  not  John 
just  then  appeared.  But  the  moment  Peter 
caught  a  glimpse  of  John  he  began  to  in- 
stitute comparisons.  The  path  which  a 
moment  since  he  would  have  been  glad  to 
tread  was  less  pleasing  now  unless  John 
must  tread  it,  too.  And  the  cross  at  the 
end  of  the  journey  needed  fresh  justifica- 
tion unless  John  also  was  to  have  a  cross. 
Notwithstanding  the  lessons  and  impulses 
of  the  hour,  Peter  stood  irresolute  and 
shrinking  until  John's  portion  should  also 
be  announced. 

What  a  type  of  humanity  is   Peter! 


A  Curious  Disciple  129 

How  many  beautiful  hours  have  been 
ruined  by  comparison  and  contrast!  So 
few  are  willing  to  live  their  own  life  and 
do  their  own  part  without  reference  to 
others.  I  have  visited  homes  which  might 
have  been  royalized,  but  for  the  chagrin 
that  some  neighbor's  home  was  finer.  It 
is  not  that  lace  curtains  and  velvet  car- 
pets are  conservators  of  bliss,  but  that 
scrim  and  ingrain  are,  by  contrast,  so 
pitifully  cheap.  There  are  men  who 
could  live  like  princes  on  fifteen  dollars 
a  week,  could  they  only  forget  the  fellows 
who  spend  twenty-five  or  a  hundred  a 
week.  I  have  watched  a  schoolgirl  com- 
paring her  dress  with  her  seatmate's, 
while  discontent  spread  like  a  plague  upon 
her  face.  Half  the  bitterness  of  life  grows 
from  the  prolific  root  of  jealousy.  Earth's 
holiest  experiences  may  be  poisoned  by  a 
single  drop  of  envy.  No  heart,  no  home 
is  safe,  after  covetousness  has  entered. 

The  trouble  is  men  do  not  trust  them- 
selves or  their  allotment.     Medicine  reck- 
9 


130  The  Question  of 

ons  with  the  matter  of  idiosyncrasy.  It 
recognizes  that  "one  man's  meat  is  an- 
other man's  poison."  That  fact,  indeed, 
makes  one  of  the  chief  perplexities  of  the 
profession.  If  a  given  drug  had  invaria- 
ble effects  the  practice  of  medicine  would 
be  comparatively  simple.  Because  opium 
kills  one  and  cures  another,  because  other 
remedies  sometimes  allay  and  sometimes 
aggravate  the  symptoms,  the  practitioner 
must  be  forever  on  his  guard.  The  best 
physician  is  he  who  makes  a  study  of  each 
case. 

Yet  when  we  come  to  God  we  expect 
Him  to  dose  everyone  alike.  Forgetful 
that  men  differ  in  their  needs,  heedless 
that  what  appeals  to  one  makes  no  im- 
pression upon  his  neighbor,  ignoring  the 
manifest  dissimilarities  of  trait  and  train- 
ing, we  somehow  expect  God  to  serve  all 
men  alike.  Peter  forgot  that  there  was 
not  another  like  himself  in  God's  vast  uni- 
verse. John  was  a  very  different  type  of 
man.  The  blow  that  would  heat  one  would 


A  Curious  Disciple  131 

crush  the  other.  The  hand  that  could 
mold  one  would  pass  over  the  other  with- 
out result.  Emerson  says,  "Insist  on 
yourself ;  never  imitate.  That  which  each 
can  do  best,  only  his  Maker  can  teach  him. 
Every  great  soul  is  a  unique."  And  so  is 
every  humble  soul,  so  far  as  aptitudes  and 
training.  God  shows  the  wonder  of  His 
care  by  refusing  to  treat  men  as  a  crowd. 
Every  child  of  Heaven  is  the  special  study 
of  the  Teacher.  No  man  can  change  his 
appointment  except  by  doing  violence  to 
the  consummate  plan  of  God.  To  accept 
one's  task  without  bitterness  or  censure; 
to  be  glad  in  all  the  special  privileges  and 
prerogatives  of  John;  to  face  the  future 
with  confidence  that  the  "Judge  of  all  the 
earth"  will  "do  right,"  is  the  part  of  an 
earnest  spirit. 

But  there  is  one  thing  more  about  Pe- 
ter's question  we  need  to  notice.  It  was 
an  unwarranted  attempt  to  ferret  out  the 
mysteries  of  the  future.  Peter  was  ready 
to  use  his  Master  as  sort  of  fortune-teller. 


132  The  Question  of 

Dissatisfied  with  the  ghmpse  into  his  own 
destiny  and  glory,  he  wanted  to  see  the 
horoscope  of  John:  "Lord,  .  .  .  what 
shall  this  man  do?"  How  inveterate  the 
impulse  is.  It  might  be  interesting,  if  not 
edifying,  to  know  how  many  of  us  have 
consulted  palmists  and  readers  of  the 
future.  Any  glib-tongued  rascal,  en- 
dowed with  a  fair  amount  of  common 
sense,  can  be  sure  of  an  income  if  he  will 
simply  announce  himself  a  soothsayer, 
and  prey  upon  men's  folly.  I  have  some- 
times wondered  how  clairvoyants  and 
fortune-tellers  can  afford  to  advertise  in 
high-rate  papers.  The  answer  is  simple. 
They  can  afford  it  because  they  have  so 
many  high-grade  patrons.  They  appeal 
to  an  almost  ineradicable  instinct,  the 
heart's  lusting  to  know  the  future. 

How  many  people  are  forever  looking 
for  a  sign!  It  is  said  that  the  great  Dr. 
Johnson  was  a  hopeless  victim  of  this 
madness.  He  always  put  a  certain  foot 
foremost  over  the  threshold :  if  the  other 


A  Curious  Disciple  133 

foot  got  ahead  he  went  back  to  his  room 
and  started  downstairs  again.  They  say 
that  the  house  of  Hapsburg  is  haunted  by 
a  raven.  Every  disaster  to  the  family, 
according  to  the  tradition,  has  been  fore- 
tokened by  the  appearance  of  the  bird. 
There  are  few  neighborhoods  in  w^hich  a 
dog  may  howl  at  night  without  sending 
shudders  through  every  hearer.  How  quick 
most  hosts  would  be  to  send  for  an  extra 
guest  to  make  fourteen  at  table.  So  avid- 
ious  of  glimpses  of  the  future  are  we  all. 
The  Bible  has  never  been  worse  abused, 
I  suppose,  than  by  students  who  tried  to 
write  future  histories  from  its  pages. 
Now  and  again  some  exegete  comes  for- 
ward with  a  new  interpretation  of  Daniel's 
prophecy,  or  of  the  Revelation  of  St.  John. 
Among  my  earliest  recollections  is  that  of 
certain  citizens,  closing  up  their  terrestrial 
affairs,  and  waiting  on  the  housetops  for 
the  Lord  "to  descend  from  Heaven  with  a 
shout !" — all  based  upon  a  hint  in  Daniel's 
prophetic  weeks.    The  Bible  was  never  in- 


134  The  Question  of 

tended  as  a  field  glass  to  spy  out  the  secrets 
of  the  future.  I  sometimes  wonder  that, 
with  all  the  Adventist  and  Millenarian 
chronology  which  has  been  read  into  its 
pages,  the  Bible  is  not  as  discredited  to- 
day as  an  exploded  work  on  astronomy 
or  physics.  Not  one  page  of  Scripture 
was  ever  given  to  glut  our  curiosity  con- 
cerning events  not  yet  at  hand.  The 
Bible  is  a  book  for  human  life.  It  opens 
Heaven  just  far  enough  to  light  up  the 
path  for  pilgrims.  It  has  nothing  but 
confusion  and  consternation  for  those  who 
approach  it  as  they  would  a  soothsayer's 
tent.  God  has  chosen  to  keep  His  secrets 
to  himself,  and  He  has  no  confidants  em- 
powered to  impart  those  secrets  for  fees 
to  cover  expenses. 

Even  Jesus  barely  drew  aside  the  cur- 
tain. He  talked  of  kindness  and  purity 
and  truth.  He  revealed  the  sort  of  man- 
hood which  makes  Heaven  above  or  be- 
low. He  set  human  life  in  the  blaze  of  an 
open  sky.     But  He  said  next  to  nothing 


A  Curious  Disciple  135 

to  satisfy  men's  lustings  concerning  the 
future.  He  warned  the  disciples  against 
those  very  persons  who  should  come  with 
a  message  of  exclusive  information.  He 
refused  to  tell  names  and  dates.  And 
when  Peter  broke  into  a  characteristic 
question  concerning  the  future  years, 
Jesus  answered  sternly :  "What  is  that  to 
thee?    Follow  thou  Me." 

This,  then,  is  the  golden  word,  obedi- 
ence. The  first  thing  that  Jesus  ever  said 
to  Peter  was,  "Follow  Me."  And  Peter 
left  his  nets  and  followed  Him.  The  last 
commandment  that  Jesus  gave  to  Peter, 
so  far  as  the  record  shows,  was  still,  "Fol- 
low Me."  And  Peter  forsook  his  inquis- 
itiveness  and  paltering  and  followed  Jesus. 
That  is  the  test  of  life.  The  triumphs  of 
our  age  have  not  been  the  outcome  of 
mooning,  but  of  obedience.  Obedience 
to  the  law  of  color  gave  the  world  an 
"Angelus."  Obedience  to  the  law  of 
steam  gave  the  world  an  engine.  Obedi- 
ence to  the  law  of  electricity  has  given  us 


136  A  Curious  Disciple 

the  telephone  and  trolley.  Obedience  to 
the  law  of  God  has  given  the  world  all  its 
saints  and  all  its  heroes.  The  trouble  is, 
we  put  something  before  obedience.  Like 
Peter,  we  are  in  search  of  information: 
mongers  of  mystery.  And  like  Peter,  if 
we  ever  find  the  path  to  eminence  and 
power  it  will  prove  to  be  the  pathway  of 
obedience.  Heaven  itself  is  simply  the 
final  attainment  of  the  perfectly  obedient 
life.  Instead  of  asking,  "Lord,  .  .  . 
what  shall  this  man  do?"  we  need  to  ask 
that  other  burning  question :  "Lord,  what 
wilt  thou  have  7ne  to  do  ?" 


VII 

THE  QUESTION    OF  OLD-FASHIONED 
THEOLOGY 


"A  world  without  a  contingency  or  an  agony 
could  have  no  hero  and  no  saint,  and  enable  no 
Son  of  Man  to  discover  that  he  was  the  Son  of 
God.  .  .  .  There  is  no  epic  of  the  certainties;  and 
no  lyric  without  the  surprise  of  sorrow  and  the 
sigh  of  fear.  Whatever  touches  and  ennobles  us 
in  the  lives  and  in  the  voices  of  the  past  is  a  di- 
vine birth  from  human  doubt  and  pain.  Let  then 
the  shadows  lie,  and  the  perspective  of  the  light 
still  deepen  beyond  our  view ;  else,  while  we  walk 
together,  our  hearts  will  never  burn  within  us 
as  we  go ;  and  the  darkness,  as  it  falls,  will  deliver 
us  into  no  hand  that  is  Divine." — Martineaii. 

"  'Tis  the  Master  who  holds  the  chisel,  and  day  by 

day 
He  is  chipping  whatever  environs  the  form  away; 
That  under  His  skillful  cutting  the  form  may  be 
Wrought  silently  out  to  beauty,  of  such  degree 
Of  faultless  and  full  perfection,  that  angel  eyes 
Shall  gaze  on  the  finished  product  with  new  sur- 
prise— 
That   even   His   matchless   patience   could   grave 

His  own 
Features  upon  such  fractured  and  stubborn  stone." 

— Anon. 

"For  it  became  Him  for  whom  are  all  things, 
and  by  whom  are  all  things,  in  bringing  many  sons 
unto  glory,  to  make  the  Captain  of  their  salva- 
tion perfect  through  sufferings." — Paul. 


''WHO  DID  SIN, 

THIS  MAN  OR  HIS  PARENTS, 

THAT    HJi    WAS    BORN    BLIND?'' 

But  for  the  presence  of  Jesus  on  the 
scene  this  ancient  question  might  never 
have  been  asked.  BUnd  men  were  no 
rarity  in  the  streets  of  Jerusalem.  Ac- 
cording to  eminent  authority,  bhndness 
was  a  common  affliction  in  Eastern  coun-. 
tries,  as  indeed  is  still  the  case.  And  the 
regular  procedure  with  such  unfortunates 
was  to  station  them  along  the  highways, 
or  at  the  Temple  approaches,  where  their 
staring,  unseeing  eyes  might  become  rev- 
enue producers.  From  the  frequency  of 
New  Testament  allusion  to  the  blind,  it 
would  appear  that  the  disciples  could 
hardly  turn  into  any  thoroughfare  with- 
out running  upon  some  such  candidate 
for  public  pity.  So  there  could  scarcely 
have  been  anything  exceptional  in  the 
present  instance.  Had  not  their  Master 
paused,  the  disciples  might  have  hurried 

139 


140  The  Question  of 

past  without  token  of  interest.  But 
Jesus'  interest  awakened  theirs,  and  they 
stood  for  a  moment  looking  down  into 
eyes  which,  though  vacant,  must  have 
felt  the  critical  stare. 

I  suppose  they  were  nettled,  too,  by 
the  obtrusiveness  of  suffering  upon  their 
Master.  They  never  did  quite  under- 
stand why  He  should  be  so  liable  to  con- 
stant interruption.  They  warmly  resent- 
ed men's  interference  with  His  seasons  of 
toil  and  rest.  Remember,  they  would 
have  sent  the  little  children  away  without 
a  chance  to  feel  His  kind  arms;  and  the 
multitude  without  the  miraculous  bread; 
and  the  sick  woman  without  her  cure,  but 
for  Jesus'  restraining  word.  So  here: 
they  were  impatient  with  inopportune  de- 
lay. And  their  question  was  in  part  their 
protest:  ''Master,  who  did  sin,  this  man 
or  his  parents,  that  he  was  born  blind  ?" 

How  that  spirit  repeats  itself.  We 
have  not  yet  learned  a  whole-hearted  ten- 
derness   toward    human    suffering.     We 


Old-fashioned  Theology  141 

have  improved  somewhat,  no  doubt.  We 
have  learned  a  good  many  fine  lessons  of 
mutual  dependence  and  help.  Our  hos- 
pitals, asylums,  and  infirmaries  of  many 
sorts  register  our  advance  from  a  day  in 
which  weakness  and  incapacity  were  the 
objects  of  nameless  crimes.  Modern  sen- 
timent would  not  tolerate  for  a  moment 
the  overbearing  and  brutishness  of  former 
ages.  Hospital  nurses  will  work  all  night 
trying  to  keep  the  breath  of  life  in  some 
tiny  foundling  whose  own  mother  has 
left  it  to  die,  and  which,  if  it  lives,  can 
only  become  a  public  ward.  The  execu- 
tion of  a  human  hound  like  Czolgosz  must 
not  be  attended  with  any  vindictive  cruel- 
ty or  horrors.  You  recall  the  howl  of 
protest  which  went  up  during  the  progress 
of  the  Spanish-American  war  at  the  use 
of  explosive  bullets.  Notwithstanding 
all  which  growth  of  altruistic  sentiment 
throughout  the  world,  it  is  still  hard  for 
the  individual  to  be  considerate  toward 
all  phases  of  suffering.    Men  are  still  too 


142  The  Question  of 

much  Hke  the  herd  in  which,  when  one  is 
down,  all  the  rest  turn  to  and  gore  him. 
There  is  an  almost  irresistible  impulse  to 
kick  a  dead  dog.  I  have  seen  a  lad  take  a 
kitten  and  dash  its  life  out  against  a  wall 
— not  from  any  particular  malice  toward 
the  kitten,  but  in  a  general  impatience 
with,  and  cruelty  toward,  the  weak  and 
helpless.  Why  did  the  Duke  of  Guise 
stamp  his  heel  into  the  lifeless  features  of 
Admiral  Coligny  ?  As  a  mark  of  revenge, 
in  part;  but  partly,  also,  from  the  deeply 
ingrained  instinct  to  crush  the  fallen. 

I  used  to  wonder  how  Torquemada's 
agents  could  perform  their  butchers' 
work ;  how  the  Parisian  mob  could  dip  its 
pikes  in  the  blood  of  its  aforetime  leaders ; 
how  the  witch  burners  of  Salem  could 
steel  themselves  to  so  fearful  a  crime. 
Further  acquaintance  with  human  hearts 
has  taken  away  my  wonder.  I  now  know 
that  human  nature  runs  that  way;  that 
we  take  a  sort  of  satanic  delight  in  the 
discomfiture    of    others;    that    we    can 


Old-fashioned  Theology  143 

hardly  hold  ourselves  back  from  open 
participation  in  the  process  which  grinds 
the  beauty  out  of  another  soul. 

So  I  am  not  particularly  surprised  at 
the  conduct  of  these  disciples.  Perhaps, 
if  they  had  expressed  the  full  counsel  of 
their  hearts,  they  would  have  smitten  the 
blind  man  instead  of  asking  this  question 
concerning  him.  They  were  men;  and 
being  men,  were  impatient  with  suffering. 
To  be  annoyed  in  the  presence  of  human 
infirmity  and  blemish  is  characteristic  of 
the  sex.  A  man  stands  and  scolds,  while 
a  woman  hurries  for  the  aconite  or  cam- 
phor bottle.  ''Where  did  you  get  that 
cold?'*  or,  "What  folly  have  you  been  up 
to  now?"  is  a  man's  first  volley  in  a  sick 
room.  How  many  women  will  drag 
themselves  downstairs  to  greet  the  home- 
coming husband,  rather  than  see  the  re- 
proach in  his  eyes  or  hear  the  injured  tone 
in  his  voice.  Even  little  children  learn  to 
choke  down  their  sobs  and  conceal  their 
ailments  in  the  presence  of  the  august 


144  The  Question  of 

masters  of  the  home.  Most  men  are  worse 
than  a  bull  in  a  china  shop  when  they  at- 
tempt to  be  useful  in  a  sick  room.  They 
jar  the  bed,  and  spill  the  medicine,  and 
upset  the  chairs,  primarily  because  they 
lack  real  sympathy  with  pain. 

So  with  our  attitude  toward  weakness 
generally.  That  spectacle  which  evokes 
a  woman's  best,  often  shows  up  a  man 
at  his  worst.  It  is  the  feminine  prin- 
ciple which  has  borne  fruit  in  the  gentler 
spirit  of  our  age.  It  is  the  woman  instinct 
which  has  founded  the  hospitals  and  built 
the  asylums  for  the  blind  and  crippled.  It 
is  the  mother  heart  which  has  room  for  all 
manner  of  weakness  and  incompetence. 
Real  sympathy  is  distinctively  feminine, 
and  it  is  only  as  we  men  come  to  acquire 
it  painfully  that  we  excel  in  those  quali- 
ties which  are  the  special  glory  of  our 
age — long-suffering,  forgiveness,  charity. 

I  do  not  wonder  that  the  ancient  mas- 
ters wrought  so  much  of  the  feminine 
face  into  their  portraitures  of  Christ.   His 


Old-fashioned  Theology  145 

tenderness  was  such  as  they  had  never 
seen  except  in  their  holiest  women — their 
mothers  and  their  wives.  A  gentle-man 
was  almost  a  contradiction  in  terms.  They 
could  not  imagine  one  except  with  a 
woman's  face,  and  so,  as  they  bent  over 
their  canvas,  unconsciously  the  lines  of 
femininity  and  motherhood  came  out  in 
their  pictures  of  the  Christ. 

Out.  then,  on  these  heathenish  notions 
of  manhood  I  The  truest  manhood  is 
neither  coarse  nor  harsh.  He  who  most 
nearly  reproduces  Christ  combines  all 
the  strength  of  man  with  the  grace  and 
delicacy  of  woman. 

But  there  is  somewhat  further  in  this 
ancient  question  concerning  the  blind  man. 
If  the  disciples  were  nettled  by  the  pres- 
ence of  suffering,  they  were  also  disposed 
to  philosophize  about  it.  It  was  not  so 
important  that  a  blind  man  needed  sight 
as  that  here  was  a  case  to  discuss.  And 
they  could  have  sat  down  within  earshot 

of  the  sufferer,  and  argued  his  case  in  all 
10 


146  The  Question  of 

its  bearings — except  that  Jesus  rebuked 
their  cruelty  and  meanness.  There  are 
times  when  only  a  shallow  soul  will  pre- 
sume to  argue.  In  the  presence  of  an- 
other's agony  the  kind  heart  declines  to 
fall  to  asking  questions. 

Job's  famous  friends  were  poor  enough, 
God  knows.  They  have  always  stood  for 
the  sort  of  comforters  a  man  can  do  well 
without.  They  tempted  him  to  all  man- 
ner of  impiety  and  madness.  But  the  fact 
is  that  they  were  by  so  much  more  con- 
siderate than  some  of  our  modern  com- 
forters, that  for  seven  days  and  seven 
nights  they  sat  with  him  in  the  presence 
of  his  calamity,  without  uttering  a  word. 
So  far  as  the  record  shows,  not  a  question 
passed  between  them.  They  had  nothing 
to  say,  and  they  discreetly  held  their 
peace.  Whatever  Job  may  have  thought 
of  them  in  the  latter  stages  of  his  afflic- 
tion, he  could  but  be  grateful  for  those 
first  few  days  of  silence.  Imagine  three 
of  us,  sitting  in  the  presence  of  another's 


Old-fashioned  Theology  147 

great  misfortune,  and  not  discussing  the 
merits  of  the  case.  Why,  bless  your 
heart !  we  would  have  it  all  gone  over  and 
settled  to  the  satisfaction  of  the  commu- 
nity before  twenty-four  hours  had  passed. 
I  was  much  impressed  with  an  item  in 
the  account  of  the  New  York  tunnel  hor- 
ror. It  seems  that,  just  as  we  were  be- 
ginning to  vent  our  wrath  upon  the 
engine  -  driver,  an  inquisitorial  process 
began  at  the  New  York  Station  House. 
With  merciless  insistence  the  officials 
bore  down  upon  the  man.  A  hundred 
questions  were  leveled  at  his  head,  when 
District  Attorney  Jerome  stepped  in  and 
said,  "Not  now;  not  now;  guilty  or  in- 
nocent, he  cannot  be  racked  with  ques- 
tions to-day !  There  will  be  time  enough, 
later,  to  get  at  the  facts  in  the  case. 
Meanwhile  the  man  must  be  let  alone. 
Whatever  his  fault,  his  condition  must 
be  respected."  And  so  the  dogs  were 
called  off.  Mr.  Jerome  may  distinguish 
himself  in  many  noble  ways,  but  I  doubt 


148  The  Question  of 

if  he  will  ever  be  credited  with  a  finer  act 
than  that.  It  was  the  prompting  of  a 
gracious  soul  in  the  moment  of  another 
soul's  eclipse. 

How  much  philanthropic  work  is 
spoiled  by  over-inquisitiveness.  It  may 
be  interesting  to  know  a  beneficiary's 
past;  it  may  even  be  necessary  that  one 
should  know  it;  but  in  a  majority  of  in- 
stances we  do  well  to  keep  all  questions 
in  the  background.  Respect  the  sanctity 
of  another  soul  —  even  though  its  pos- 
sessor has  appealed  to  you  for  bread  or 
sympathy.  For  the  present  moment  it 
does  not  matter  whether  improvidence,  or 
drink,  or  bestiality  was  primarily  respon- 
sible for  his  present  degradation  and 
shame.  He  is  down ;  that  is  plain  enough. 
Let  him  forget  it  a  moment  if  he  can.  Do 
not  make  him  choke  with  undeserved 
bread.  Never  let  him  feel  that  your  kind- 
ness is  an  admission  price  to  the  lurid 
picture  gallery  of  his  career.  Let  him 
revel  in  the  "rarity  of  Christian  charity," 


Old-fashioned  Theology  149 

without  being  made  painfully  aware  of 
the  string  that  works  it.  Jesus  never  used 
a  probe  for  spectacular  or  pedagogic  pur- 
poses. He  went  only  far  enough  to  find 
the  sore :  then  he  poured  in  oil  and  wine. 
He  gave  bread  and  comfort  and  pardon 
without  playing  inquisitor  at  all. 

I  fancy  that  hosts  of  people  have  been 
driven  away  from  our  denominational 
altars  by  endless  catechising.  It  is  so 
easy  to  fall  into  that  error,  and  so  hard  to 
recognize  that  one  has  fallen  into  it  at 
all.  To  every  earnest  life,  and  to  lives 
that  otherwise  seem  heedless,  there  come 
moments  of  deep  disgust,  of  consciousness 
of  sin,  in  which  the  soul  longs  to  draw 
down  over  itself  the  ample  mantle  of 
heaven's  charity.  They  may  come — these 
convicting  moments — under  the  pressure 
of  some  great  sorrow,  in  the  reactions  of 
business  life,  at  Christian  altars.  But 
however  they  come,  and  where,  they  are 
the  work  of  the  Spirit  Divine,  and  must 
not  be  trifled  with.    Nothing  is  more  ob- 


150  The  Question  of 

trusive  at  such  an  hour  than  religious 
chatter.  Prying  into  the  process  of  a 
heart's  repentance  is  the  worst  impiety. 
I  have  knelt  at  a  Methodist  altar,  full  of 
contrition  for  my  wrongs,  and  had  all  of 
the  contrition  knocked  out  of  me  by  the 
questions  of  some  well-intentioned,  but 
meddlesome,  old  lady.  I  have  marked  the 
annoyance  on  the  faces  of  earnest  seekers 
as  some  glib  examiner  came  crowding  in. 
''Let  her  alone,"  said  Jesus  to  the  ready 
critics  of  Mary's  spikenard.  They  were 
figuring  up  the  cost.  They  were  an- 
alyzing the  motive.  They  wanted  to  know 
why  she  had  not  done  something  else  with 
the  money.  And  they  might  have  driven 
her  away  from  Christ  but  for  His  cor- 
rective word:  "Let  her  alone  .  .  .  she 
hath  done  what  she  could  .  .  .  she  hath 
wrought  a  beautiful  work  upon  me  .  .  . 
let  her  alone!"  Such  is  the  warning  to 
apply  to  our  ill-timed  zeal.  To  respect 
the  sanctity  of  a  man's  audience  with 
God ;  to  stand  back  with  uncovered  brow 


Old-fashioned  Theology  151 

in  the  presence  o^  another's  confession; 
to  keep  irreverent  hands  off  the  starting 
of  new  life,  is  a  prime  lesson  for  Chris- 
tian workers. 

But  what  was  the  question  which  these 
disciples  asked?  We  have  been  studying 
external  characteristics:  what  was  the 
question  itself  ?  The  disciples  stood  front- 
ing the  problem  of  pain.  Everywhere 
they  turned  they  met  it.  On  the  pallets 
of  the  sick,  in  all  poverty  and  want,  traced 
in  human  agony  and  tears,  they  found  it. 
Shut  their  eyes  and  ears  to  the  misery 
around,  there  was  still  the  ache  in  their 
own  bosoms,  the  arrow  in  their  own  flesh. 
Why  need  anyone  be  sick  or  sad  ?  If  this 
be  God's  world,  and  He  be  good,  why 
should  His  children  go  limping  and  moan- 
ing with  pain  ?  In  particular  ( for  the  dis- 
ciples were  gazing  now  into  a  pair  of 
sightless  eyes),  why  should  "this  man" 
be  "born  blind?" 

But  you  observe  they  put  something 
else  into  their  question.     They  did  not 


152  The  Question  of 

ask,  merely,  why  a  man  should  be  born 
blind.  They  wanted  to  know  whose  sin 
had  made  him  blind.  ''Master,  who  did 
siUj  this  man  or  his  parents,  that  he  was 
born  blind  ?"  That  question  put  an  added 
sting  into  the  fact  of  pain.  Pain  was  held 
to  be  evidence  of  sin.  Steeped  in  the  the- 
ology of  Eastern  thought,  these  ancients 
could  niot  look  upon  suffering  without 
seeming  to  behold  the  Divine  displeasure. 
By  the  horrors  of  the  suffering  they  meas- 
ured the  enormity  of  the  antecedent  sin. 
How  cruel  theology  has  often  been.  It 
has  supplied  the  thorn  instead  of  taking 
the  thorn  away.  In  the  days  of  the  In- 
quisition they  would  take  a  man  from  the 
rack  to  poke  needles  into  his  eyes ;  or  carry 
his  bleeding  form  to  some  fresh  torture. 
If  they  refreshed  him  with  food  and  wine 
it  was  only  that  they  might  prolong  his 
agonies  a  trifle  further.  Theology  has 
oftentimes  done  the  same:  thrust  an  ad- 
ditional needle  into  flesh  already  quiver- 
ing with  pain;  given  to  broken  limbs  an 


Old-fashioned  Theology  153 

extra  tormenting  twist.  In  no  depart- 
ment of  human  knowledge  is  a  ''little 
learning"  so  dangerous  a  thing  as  in  the- 
ology. The  world  has  been  ''damned"  a 
good  many  times  "to  save  a  syllogism." 
May  God  forgive  us  that  we  have  so  often 
stood  over  human  disappointments  and 
agony,  like  those  poor  comforters  of  old, 
asking:  "Who  did  sin?" 

Isn't  it  bad  enough  to  be  sick  without 
being  incessantly  reminded  that  nobody 
else  is  to  blame?  There  is  doubtless  a 
vital  connection  between  mince  pie  and 
dyspepsia;  between  nervous  strain  and 
nervous  breakdown.  This  is  part  of  the 
law  of  the  universe.  And  a  famous  writer 
affirms  that  the  day  will  eventually  come 
in  which  it  will  be  a  disgrace  to  be  sick. 
That  day,  however,  has  not  yet  dawned, 
and  meantime,  to  assume  that  all  present 
physical  aches  and  pains  are  the  results 
of  particular  sins,  is  one  of  the  hugest 
and  crudest  falsehoods  ever  conceived  by 
the  mind  of  man. 


154  The  Question  of 

Have  you  thought  why  it  is  so  hard  to 
be  patient  with  other  men's  miseries? 
Partly  because  we  cannot  get  clear  of  the 
impression  that  their  wretchedness  is  a 
judgment  of  God.  The  Pharisees  drew 
aside  their  skirts  from  the  mendicant  and 
leper,  lest  they  be  defiled  by  his  sin.  They 
would  have  nothing  to  do  with  a  soul  un- 
der the  displeasure  of  God.  Alas!  that 
after  nineteen  centuries  there  should  be 
so  many  Pharisees  left !  The  spirit  which 
prompts  one  to  draw  back  from  creatures 
of  poverty,  and  makes  him  cross  the  street 
to  avoid  an  object  of  pity,  is  Pharisaism 
unalloyed. 

So  with  respect  to  the  crushing  be- 
reavements of  human  life.  I  have  stood 
beside  parents  who  had  lost  their  child, 
and  have  watched  the  billows  go  over 
them ;  but  the  coldest,  most  staggering 
wave  of  all  was  the  thought  that  bereave- 
ment meant  punishment.  "My  God,  did 
I  sin  like  this?"  cried  a  father  out  of  the 
depth  of  his  distress.    "Do  you  think  God 


Old-fashioned  Theology  155 

took  away  my  baby  because  I  loved  it  so 
well?"  moaned  a  broken-hearted  mother. 
May  heaven  forgive  us  that  we  have  ever 
tried  to  comfort  the  comfortless  with  a 
wicked  barb  like  that.  Yet  such  is  pre- 
cisely the  method  I  have  known  certain 
Christians  to  adopt,  and  all  in  the  name 
of  Him  who  said  to  the  disciples  of  old: 
''Neither  hath  this  man  sinned  nor  his 
parents ;  but  that  the  works  of  God  should 
be  made  manifest  in  Him." 

Ah!  friends,  that  latter  phrase  ought 
to  take  the  sting  out  of  part  of  our  suffer- 
ing. I  do  not  understand  Jesus  to  deny 
the  retributions  of  life.  On  the  contrary, 
no  one  ever  taught  retribution  in  such 
terms  as  He  used.  But  He  refused  to 
call  all  suffering  penal.  He  pointed  to  a 
realm  in  which  pain  is  the  precious  min- 
ister of  finest  loveliness.  And  then  He 
died  of  a  broken  heart,  upon  a  Roman 
gibbet,  to  prove  that  the  most  sinless  life 
can  suffer  most  of  all.  I  do  not  assume 
to  unravel  the  mystery  of  pain.    Not  even 


156  Old-fashioned  Theology 

Jesus  ventured  to  do  that.  I  do  not  af- 
firm whether  God  sends  pain,  or  per- 
mits pain,  or  what.  I  only  affirm  that  He 
can  use  pain,  as  the  potter  uses  fire  to 
bring  out  the  hues  of  his  porcelain;  as 
the  mother  uses  a  fall  or  a  cut  to  enforce 
an  important  lesson  upon  her  child.  And 
I  affirm  further,  as  a  truism  of  life,  that 
''it  is  good"  for  most  of  us  that  we  "have 
been  afflicted,"  else  we  should  never  have 
borne  the  fairer  fruits  of  the  Kingdom  of 
God. 


VIII 

THE  QUESTION  OF  A  NIGHT 
VISITOR 


"No  man  can  learn  what  he  has  not  preparation 
for  learning,  however  near  to  his  eyes  is  the  ob- 
ject. A  chemist  may  tell  his  most  precious  se- 
crets to  a  carpenter,  and  he  shall  be  never  the 
wiser.  Our  eyes  are  holden  that  we  cannot  see 
things  that  stare  us  in  the  face,  until  the  hour 
arrives   that   the   mind   is   ripened." — Emerson. 

"The  difference  between  the  Spiritual  man  and 
the  Natural  i  is  not  a  difference  of  develop- 
ment, but  of  generation.  It  is  a  distinction  of 
quality,  not  quantity.  A  man  cannot  rise  by  any 
natural  development  from  'morality  touched  by 
emotion'  to  'morality  touched  by  Life.'  " — Drum- 
mo  nd. 

"That  which  is  born  of  the  flesh  is  flesh,  and 
that  which  is  born  of  the  Spirit  is  spirit." — Paul. 


^HOW  CAN  A  MAN  BE  BORN 
WHEN  HE  IS  OLD?'' 

What  brought  Nicodemus  to  Jesus  for 
this  immortal  interview,  the  record  fails 
to  say.  Curiosity,  perhaps.  Men  have 
gone  around  the  world  merely  to  gratify 
that  impulse.  It  needs  only  that  a  word 
be  suppressed  or  a  mystery  announced, 
and  certain  natures  are  aflame  with  a  zeal 
which  knows  no  quenching.  Or,  argu- 
mentativeness may  have  supplied  the  mo- 
mentum for  Nicodemus'  visit.  There  are 
men  who  would  rather  debate  than  eat. 
They  will  discuss  anything  from  the  new- 
est wrinkle  in  fashion  to  the  question  of 
immortality,  not  so  much  from  personal 
interest  in  the  theme  as  from  sheer  delight 
in  disputation.  So  it  may  have  been  with 
this  ancient  Pharisee :  he  may  have  come 
to  Jesus  only  for  the  chance  to  unsheathe 
his  debating  sword.  Or,  again,  it  may 
have  been  the  furtive  glimpse  of  a  new, 

159 


160  The  Question  of 

bright  realm  that  brought  him.  It  is  one 
evidence  of  the  essential  royalty  of  human 
nature  that  men  can  never  again  be  quite 
satisfied  with  mediocrity  or  meanness  in 
the  presence  of  a  higher  grace.  They  are 
challenged,  rebuked,  upheaved  by  the  ex- 
cellence which  outruns  their  present  at- 
tainment. No  man  can  be  the  same  after 
one  earnest  look  into  the  kingdom  of 
possibility.  And  countless  souls  will 
follow  that  lead  as  miners  follow  a  vein 
of  ore.  Such  may  have  been  the  signifi- 
cance of  Nicodemus'  visit — a  hunger 
for  spiritual  food;  the  quest  of  a  finer 
strength. 

But  whichever  of  these  conceivable 
emotions  was  the  dominant  one  in  Nico- 
demus' case,  he  came  to  Jesus.  And  our 
Scripture  is  the  expression  of  his  astonish- 
ment at  the  answer  which  Jesus  gave  to 
his  first  inquiry:  ^'How  can  a  man  be 
born  when  he  is  old  ?" 

It  has  been  generally  assumed  that  Nic- 
odemus dropped  his  quest ;  that  he  turned 


A  Night  Visitor  161 

away  dismayed,  if  not  disgusted.  And 
there  are  multitudes  of  men  who  would 
heartily  approve  such  conduct.  I  doubt 
if  there  is  a  doctrine  of  Jesus  which  mod- 
ern men  so  thoroughl}  disbelieve  as  that 
which  staggered  Nicodemus  nineteen  cen- 
turies ago.  I  know  just  how  men  roast  it 
over  the  slow  fires  of  their  sarcasm.  I 
have  watched  them  score  it  with  the  keen- 
est infidel  blades.  I  have  seen  it  pilloried 
and  hung  in  effigy  before  an  admiring 
crowd.  To  all  of  which  there  is  just  this 
to  say — and  I  believe  it  can  be  substan- 
tiated with  vital  truth — that  of  all  the 
Master's  doctrines  none  is  more  self-evi- 
dent and  philosophical  than  this.  There 
was  nothing  in  it  to  bewilder  Nicodemus 
or  any  man  of  us.  Jesus  touched  the  bed- 
rock of  common-sense  when  He  insisted 
that  there  is  no  way  into  His  kingdom 
except  through  "a  second  birth." 

The  trouble  is  we  have  been  frightened 
by  phrases.    We  have  missed  great  truth 

in  metaphor.   We  have  let  the  theologians 
11 


162  The  Question  of 

cheat  us  out  of  the  most  beautiful  doc- 
trines of  human  Hfe.  We  have  mistaken 
shell  for  kernel.  Are  Jesus'  utterances 
deep?  Their  depth,  like  that  of  a  crys- 
talline lake,  serves  only  to  bring  the  bot- 
tom near.  He  was  the  least  arbitrary 
teacher  the  world  has  ever  known.  He  did 
not  manufacture;  He  announced.  He 
told  men  the  things  that  are  eternally 
true.  He  built  no  exclusive  walls.  He 
merely  pointed  out  essential  limitations. 
Did  He  bid  the  rich  man  to  sell  all  that 
he  had  and  give  to  the  poor?  it  was  be- 
cause no  soul  can  ever  be  divinely  enriched 
except  through  a  process  of  disgorgement. 
Did  He  assure  the  Pharisees  that  publi- 
cans and  harlots  should  go  into  the  king- 
dom ahead  of  them?  it  was  not  that  He 
was  founding  a  kingdom  of  reprobates, 
but  that  self-righteousness  is  forever 
worse  than  forgiven  sin.  So,  did  He  an- 
nounce to  Nicodemus,  "Ye  must  be  born 
again?"  it  was  simply  His  restatement  of 
the  truth  that  no  realm  is  ever  open  except 


A  Night  Visitor  163 

to  those  who  have  been  transformed  into 
its  spirit. 

Let  me  show  this  if  I  can.  We  have  an 
Americanizing  process  called  naturaliza- 
tion. At  the  end  of  a  certain  number  of 
years  the  foreigner  is  admitted  to  citizen- 
ship. Doubtless,  in  the  interest  of  practi- 
cal politics,  the  term  is  often  shortened. 
Thousands  come  to  the  expiration  of  the 
term  as  little  qualified  to  take  the  oath 
and  to  receive  the  ballot  as  when  they 
first  landed  upon  our  shores.  But  that  is 
not  the  question  for  discussion  here  and 
now.  I  am  only  calling  attention  to  the 
fact  that  no  immigrant  is  admitted  to  our 
civic  life  except  at  the  end  of  a  period 
supposed  to  make  him  capable  of  citizen- 
ship. He  must  gain  some  acquaintance 
with  the  principles  upon  which  our  gov- 
ernment is  founded,  some  induction  into 
the  mysteries  of  our  democratic  faith, 
some  just  appreciation  of  our  sanctities 
and  honors,  before  we  count  him  worthy 
of  becoming  a  citizen.  He  must  be  endued 


164  The  Question  of 

with  American  spirit  before  he  can  sub- 
scribe himself  ''American."  In  other 
words,  he  must  be  "born  the  second  time," 
of  the  genius  of  democracy,  before  he  can 
see  the  kingdom  of  American  privilege 
and  freedom. 

Whatever  else  the  stories  of  James 
Lane  Allen  may  reveal,  they  certainly  are 
a  revelation  of  their  author's  love  of 
nature.  He  has  that  rare  insight  into 
the  life  of  wood  and  field  which  enables 
a  man  to  find  poetry,  significance,  com- 
panionship everywhere.  To  him  the  birds 
were  teachers ;  the  hemp-fields  were  open 
books.  But  admire  Mr.  Allen's  genius  as 
we  may,  delight  in  his  ecstasy  over  a 
flower  or  a  landscape,  I  am  sure  that  very 
few  of  us  would  have  made  so  much  as 
he  did  of  a  Kentucky  redbird  or  the  rustle 
of  a  tree.  Simply  because  these  things 
are  aesthetically  discerned.  Eyes  and  ears 
alone  do  not  qualify  a  man  to  be  an  Agas- 
siz  or  Audubon.  One  might  travel  from 
world's  end  to  world's  end  and  find  no 


A  Night  Visitor  165 

shrines  at  which  to  worship  except  in 
chapel  or  cathedral.  It  requires  a  certain 
delicacy  of  feeling,  a  rare  finesse  of  spirit 
to  make  one  a  real  worshiper  of  God  in 
nature.  To  use  the  phraseology  of  Scrip- 
ture, a  man  must  be  "born  the  second 
time"  into  sympathy  with  nature  before 
he  can  see  the  kingdom  of  birds  and 
flowers. 

When  Ole  Bull  invited  his  boyhood 
friend  Ericsson  to  come  and  hear  him  play 
he  received  only  a  stern  rebuff.  What  use 
had  the  man  of  monitors  and  turrets  for 
the  master's  violin?  The  crash  of  ham- 
mer and  scream  of  lathe  were  the  only 
music  for  him.  It  is  impossible  to  stir 
certain  natures  with  the  power  of  poetry. 
As  my  grandmother  used  to  say  of  them, 
they  would  "rather  hear  it  thunder."  Ten- 
nyson and  Browning  are  worse  than  tor- 
ment to  them.  There  are  sightseers  who 
race  through  an  art  gallery  as  if  they  were 
going  to  catch  a  train,  with  no  eye  for 
anything  save  a  dash  of  striking  color,  or 


166  The  Question  of 

a  specimen  of  unchaste  art.  The  trouble 
is  they  have  no  faculty  for  the  apprecia- 
tion of  pictures.  They  are  creatures  of 
the  market-place,  masters  of  finance  and 
shipping.  And  we  come  back  to  Jesus' 
word  to  phrase  the  explanation.  A 
man  must  be  ''born  the  second  time," 
of  the  artistic  spirit,  before  he  can  see 
the  kingdom  of  music  or  poetry  or 
painting. 

It  is  the  record  of  all  reformatory  move- 
ments that  their  leaders,  for  a  long  time, 
stood  alone.  The  penalty  of  being  a  pio- 
neer is  loneliness.  Huss  had  few  sympa- 
thizers while  he  lived.  Wilberforce  was 
cordially  hated  for  his  interference  with 
the  slave  trade.  The  purifier  of  municipal 
politics  will  often  wonder  where  the  lov- 
ers of  righteousness  have  fled.  We  must 
catch  the  spirit  which  carries  such  men 
beyond  the  margin  of  commercial  pru- 
dence, before  we  can  properly  appraise 
their  greatness.  A  man  must  be  ''born 
the  second  time,"  into  love  for  his  fellow- 


A  Night  Visitor  167 

beings,  before  he  can  see  the  kingdom  of 
human  brotherhood. 

I  do  not  beHeve  that  any  childless 
woman  ever  guessed  the  intensity  and 
self-abandon  of  a  mother's  love.  There 
are,  to  be  sure,  simulations  of  maternal 
kindness.  There  is  a  distinctive  tender- 
ness which  belongs  to  woman.  I  have 
watched  the  nurses  in  children's  wards  of 
hospitals  until,  in  my  admiration  for 
their  zeal,  it  seemed  that  no  mother-hearts 
could  be  more  responsive.  Yet  there  is  a 
realm  of  devotion  no  childless  woman, 
however  queenly,  can  ever  enter.  A 
woman  must  be  "born  the  second  time," 
into  the  maternal  spirit,  before  she  can 
see  the  kingdom  of  motherhood. 

This,  then,  is  the  truth  which  Jesus 
seized  upon  to  describe  the  mode  of  in- 
duction into  His  kingdom.  As  there  is 
no  entrance  into  the  kingdom  of  citizen- 
ship, or  nature,  or  art,  or  philanthropy, 
or  motherhood  except  through  a  second 
birth,  so  with  the  kingdom  of  holiness  and 


168  The  Question  of^ 

Heaven.  A  man  must  be  ''born  the  second 
time,"  ''of  water  and  the  Spirit" — by  the 
naturahzation  of  purity  and  Christ-Hke- 
ness — before  he  can  enter  the  Kingdom 
of  God.  Is  there  anything  arbitrary  or 
unreasonable  about  the  method  which  as- 
tonished Nicodemus?  If  you  were  look- 
ing for  a  description  of  the  transforma- 
tion of  a  life,  could  you  find  a  more  lumi- 
nous expression  ? 

There  is  a  kingdom  of  darkness,  and 
there  is  a  kingdom  of  light.  Men  are  in 
danger  of  forgetting  this  sometimes. 
There  is  a  disposition  to  shade  off  the  dif- 
ferences between  light  and  dark,  between 
good  and  evil.  Modern  philosophy  for- 
bids to  call  human  villainies  by  uncom- 
fortable names.  Greed,  sensuality,  intem- 
perance, these  are  simply  the  "prosecution 
of  nature's  plan  for  the  advancement  of 
the  inhabitants  of  earth."  I  read  the  other 
day  that  the  pauper  who  brings  into  the 
world  children  he  cannot  feed  is  one  of 
society's    benefactors,    because    he    thus 


A  Night  Visitor  169 

sharpens  the  world-wide  struggle  for  ex- 
istence. Most  folks  have  been  brought 
up  to  look  upon  drunkenness  as  a  shame- 
ful thing,  yet  a  certain  writer  apostro- 
phizes it  as  an  agent  which  is  solving  the 
negro  problem  by  killing  off  the  blacks. 
Take  the  statement  that  "adultery  may  be 
regarded  merely  as  a  new  experiment  in 
living!"  An  English  author  maintains 
that  the  abandoned  women  of  our  cities 
are  not  the  worst,  but  the  "best  of  the 
lower  classes,  who  cannot  get  their  true 
match  in  the  sphere  where  they  were  born, 
and  must,  by  the  holiest  of  instincts  .  .  . 
seek  upward  by  any  means."  What  a  dif- 
ferent thing  must  prostitution  seem  when 
men  have  persuaded  themselves  that  it  is 
the  result  of  the  holiest  instinct,  "seeking 
upward." 

Most  men,  however,  will  continue  to 
believe  that  there  is  a  "great  gulf  fixed" 
between  impurity  and  chastity,  between 
falsehood  and  the  truth.  Vice  is  not  "vir- 
tue in  the  making."    Evil  is  not  a  phase 


170  The  Question  of 

of  good.  There  is  a  kingdom  of  sensu- 
ality and  license,  and  there  is  a  kingdom 
of  self-control.  There  is  a  kingdom  of 
perfidy  and  dishonor,  and  there  is  a  king- 
dom of  loyalty  and  faith.  There  is  a 
kingdom  of  avarice  and  violence,  and 
there  is  a  kingdom  of  self-sacrifice  and 
peace.  There  is  the  kingdom  of  Satan 
and  there  is  the  Kingdom  of  Jesus  Christ. 
And  a  man  can  no  more  be  a  member  of 
both  kingdoms  than  he  can  be  both  Egyp- 
tian and  American  at  once. 

How,  then,  can  one  more  faithfully 
describe  the  change  which  makes  a  man 
a  Christian  than  in  the  ancient  words, 
''born  again,  not  of  corruptible  seed,  but 
of  incorruptible?"  To  leave  one's  mean- 
ness for  a  life  of  generosity  and  service; 
to  bring  the  lower  impulses  under  the 
mastery  of  Christ;  to  forswear  the  citi- 
zenship of  thieves  and  wantons  for  the 
fellowship  and  prerogatives  of  Heaven, 
this  is  to  be  ''born  the  second  time."  By 
no  sort  of  celestial  legerdemain,  but  by 
the  heroic  struggle  of  a  soul,  with  God's 


A  Night  Visitor  171 

grace  to  ease  the  struggle,  a  man  comes 
up  out  of  his  poverty  and  shame  and 
meanness  into  the  discipleship  of  Jesus. 
''Born  again,"  "born  from  above,"  "born 
the  second  time" — such  is  the  lesson. 

This  has  been  the  miracle  of  countless 
lives.  I  call  to  mind  a  man  v^lio  came 
into  a  cottage  meeting  which  I  was  con- 
ducting. Had  I  known  his  record,  I  think 
I  should  have  hardly  ventured  the  hope  of 
helping  him  toward  God.  He  was  the 
profanest  man  in  the  village.  "Under  his 
tongue  was  the  poison  of  asps."  He  was 
notorious  as  gambler  and  debauchee;  one 
of  the  ugliest  customers  a  man  would  be 
likely  to  meet.  God  knows  why  he  ever 
came  into  that  prayer  meeting.  He  scarce- 
ly lifted  his  head,  except  to  flash  upon  me 
a  pair  of  the  brightest  and  wickedest  eyes 
I  have  ever  seen.  And  when  the  quiet 
hour  had  passed  he  slipped  out,  apparent- 
ly unbettered,  into  the  night.  Some  days 
went  by,  and  then  one  evening,  during 
the  progress  of  an  old-fashioned  Watch 


172  The  Question  of 

Night  service,  his  face  appeared  among 
the  rest.  Near  midnight  he  came  and 
knelt  ''for  the  benefit  of  prayer."  There 
was  nothing  spectacular  about  it — just  a 
brother  sorry  for  his  sin.  He  did  not 
groan  aloud,  or  cry  for  mercy.  He  gave 
no  outward  sign  of  inward  revolution. 
But  I  wish  you  might  have  seen  his  face 
as  he  arose  to  join  in  the  closing  hymn. 
It  was  fairly  luminous.  He  had  found 
the  Messiah,  and  he  went  forth  from  that 
service  to  tell  his  old  companions  the 
story  of  his  conversion;  to  live  a  beauti- 
ful, consistent  life.  I  saw  him  last  sum- 
mer, and  in  his  face  were  "the  marks  of 
the  Lord  Jesus."  And  they  tell  me  that  a 
whole  neighborhood  is  rich  in  his  conse- 
crated labors.  You  may  describe  the 
change  under  many  names — reformation, 
turning  over  a  new  leaf,  conversion.  I 
know  not  any  term  so  vividly  suggestive 
as  the  term  our  Master  used :  he  had  been 
''born  the  second  time." 

Take  such  a  case  as  that  of  Jerry  Mc- 


A  Night  Visitor  173 

Auley.  It  would  be  a  hard  task  to  ex- 
plain his  transformation  according  to  the 
principles  of  evolution.  His  heredity  was 
bad.  His  environment  was  bad.  His  as- 
sociates were  bad.  His  life  was  bad,  an 
insult  to  public  decency,  a  menace  to 
everything  good.  A  river  thief,  a  drunken 
vagabond,  a  hardened  jail  bird — such  was 
Jerry  McAuley  when  he  gave  his  heart 
to  God.  Such  was  the  material  upon 
which  the  Divine  Spirit  had  to  work.  But 
something  happened  to  the  outcast ;  some- 
thing not  called  for  in  the  books,  nor  yet 
according  to  philosophic  codes.  He  be- 
came a  new  creation.  Out  of  his  old  life 
and  into  a  new,  he  passed  as  completely 
as  if  he  had  physically  died  and  been  born 
another  man.  Our  Scripture  furnishes 
the  word :  he  had  been  "born  the  second 
time."  He  had  entered  the  kingdom  of 
chastity,  temperance,  and  truth  by  a  spir- 
itual birth. 

But  these  are  only  samples.    The  world 
is  beautiful  in  just  such  miracles — mira- 


174  The  Question  of 

cles  of  inebriates  becoming  sober,  miracles 
of  libertines  becoming  chaste,  miracles  of 
doubters  becoming  disciples,  miracles  of 
selfish  lives  becoming  generous  and 
Christ-like.  Could  I  go  through  a  com- 
munity and  pick  out  the  living  exponents 
of  Jesus'  doctrine  of  the  second  birth, 
there  would  be  material  enough  to  keep 
the  scoffers  guessing  for  a  lifetime. 

But  this  truth  is  also  a  statement  of  the 
greatest  necessity  of  human  life.  All  re- 
formatory work  must  be  based  upon,  or 
lead  up  to,  a  second  birth.  The  bitterest 
disappointments  of  my  ministry  have  been 
associated  with  trying  to  make  men  live 
in  a  realm  into  which  they  had  never  been 
born.  The  Icelander  will  go  straight  back 
to  his  bearskin  and  blubber  from  the  lux- 
uries of  such  a  land  of  ours.  Those  poor 
little  waifs  of  New  York  City  streets  who, 
by  the  grace  of  our  Fresh  Air  Funds,  are 
sent  to  breathe  God's  country  air,  and 
w^ander  among  the  wild  flowers,  are  near- 
ly always  ready  to  return  to  dusty  streets 


A  Night  Visitor  175 

and  stifling  rooms  when  the  two  or  three 
weeks  have  passed.  They  have  not  been 
''born"  into  the  sweeter  realm.  And  so  I 
find  men  turning-  away  from  their  gHmpse 
of  the  Kingdom,  away  from  its  sunshine 
and  freedom  and  fragrance,  to  the  serf- 
dom and  chill  of  an  unholy  life. 

I  have  clothed  beggars  and  sent  them 
forth  into  the  world  with  a  warm  promise 
of  amendment  upon  their  lips,  only  to  find 
afterward  that  they  had  pawned  the  very 
garments  which  made  them  decent.  I 
have  led  men  into  paths  of  temperance  and 
self-control,  only  to  see  them  sneaking 
back  to  the  old,  unrighteous  ways.  I 
have  received  men  into  the  Church  only 
to  break  my  heart  over  their  shamelessness 
and  folly.  They  had  never  been  ''born" 
into  the  Kingdom.  They  were  simply 
aliens  upon  foreign  soil.  They  had  no 
birthright  claim.  Most  men  know  what 
I  mean.  I  would  not  intimate  that  they 
have  never  tried  to  mend  the  old,  thread- 
bare life.     They  have  sworn  off,  begun 


176  A  Night  Visitor 

anew,  reformed,  until  they  were  tired  and 
sick  of  trying.  Only  God  knows  the  vows 
which  have  been  registered.  Men  are  not 
unclean  without  a  protest.  They  have 
looked  away  toward  the  Kingdom.  They 
have  breathed  its  freshness  and  touched 
its  treasure.  But  they  have  never  been 
born  into  its  safety.  And  they  can  never 
become  its  citizens  without  the  "second 
birth." 

This  is  the  message,  then,  of  Nicode- 
mus'  question.  There  will  be  marvelous 
triumphs  as  the  years  of  the  new  century 
go  by.  We  shall  enter  realms  that  to-day 
are  dark  with  mystery.  But  as  the  spirit- 
ual is  forever  higher  than  the  material; 
as  the  sublimest  power  is  not  electricity 
or  liquid  air,  but  goodness;  as  the  divinest 
conquest  is  the  conquest  of  one's  self,  we 
shall  never  be  qualified  to  see  the  finest 
visions,  or  share  the  greatest  victories,  ex- 
cept by  a  second  birth.  "Except  a  man 
be  born  again,  he  cannot  see  the  Kingdom 
of  God." 


IX 

THE  QUESTION  OF  AN  AUTOCRATIC 
EMPLOYER 


12 


"There  is  but  one  perpendicular  in  ethics  as  in 
physics.  .  .  .  Every  right  is  conditioned  upon 
every  other  right.  Nothing  is  falser  than  the  say- 
ing that  a  man  has  a  right  to  do  what  he  will 
with  his  own.  He  has  only  a  right  to  do  what  he 
ought  with  his  own." — Pike. 

"Not  what  we  give,  but  what  we  share; 

For  the  gift  without  the  giver  is  bare. 

Who  gives  himself  with  his  gift,  feeds  three — 

Himself,  his  suffering  neighbor,  and  Me." 

— Lowell. 

"Whoso  hath  this  world's  good,  and  seeth  his 
brother  have  need,  and  shutteth  up  his  bowels  of 
compassion  from  him,  how  dwelleth  the  love  of 
God  in  him?" — John. 


''IS  IT  NOT  LAWFUL 

FOR  ME  TO  DO  WHAT  I  WILL 

WITH  MINE  OWN?'' 

The  complainants  in  the  parable  of  the 
vineyard  must  have  accounted  their  case 
a  strong  one.  Nothing  is  so  hard  to  bear 
as  injustice.  That  which  makes  frustra- 
tion and  calamity  most  bitter  is  the  sense 
of  having  deserved  a  better  portion.  No 
"slings  and  arrows"  ever  cut  so  deep  as 
those  of  manifest  unfairness.  To  be  de- 
nied a  legitimate  fruition,  to  toil  on  with- 
out appreciation,  to  get  less  than  a  worthy 
wage,  turns  men  into  misanthropes  and 
atheists.  Such  was  evidently  the  mood  of 
these  protestants.  They  had  gone  into 
the  vineyard  at  the  first  call  for  helpers. 
They  had  borne,  uncomplainingly  per- 
haps, the  "burden  and  heat"  of  a  toilsome 
day.  They  had  beheld  the  later  comers 
with  the  sort  of  sinister  regard  which 
men  commonly  extend  to  those  beneath 
their  grade.    And  they  had  struggled  on, 

179 


180  The  Question  of 

persuaded  that  the  master  of  the  vineyard 
would  award  a  discriminating  wage. 
Judge,  then,  their  deep  chagrin,  when 
each  laborer  in  turn  received  the  same 
amount :  those  who  had  toiled  the  whole 
day  through  and  those  who  had  labored 
but  one  hour,  the  same  award — according 
to  the  wage  scale  of  the  day,  a  penny 
each.  They  were  indignant  on  the  in- 
stant, and  their  wrath  poured  forth  in 
the  hot  vials  of  complaint. 

I  do  not  purpose  to  rethresh  this  an- 
cient straw.  What  I  want  to  emphasize 
is  the  significant  query  in  which  the  good 
man  of  the  house  justified  his  strange 
award:  'Ts  it  not  lawful  for  me  to  do 
what  I  will  with  mine  own  ?"  The  words 
have  a  familiar  sound.  They  are  an  ex- 
pression of  the  frequent  mood  of  men. 
They  are  often  in  the  heart  of  the  mod- 
ern financier.  Suppose  he  does  pay  one 
clerk  more  wages  than  another  —  even 
give  the  unworthiest  servant  the  highest 
wage.     Suppose  he  does  cut  prices  until 


An  Autocratic  Employer         181 

a  neighboring  competitor  is  forced  out  of 
business.  Suppose  he  does  take  advantage 
of  another's  embarrassment  to  exact  an 
usurious  rate,  or  call  in  his  money  when 
he  knows  it  will  work  the  direst  harm. 
Suppose  he  does  these  things,  and  many 
more  within  the  letter  of  the  law,  whose 
business  is  it  but  his  ?  Is  he  not  at  liberty 
to  do  ''what  he  will  with  his  own?" 

The  same  plea  is  often  heard  in  another 
department  of  life.  One  of  the  most  seri- 
ous arraignments  of  the  modern  amuse- 
ment question  is  the  terrible  waste  in- 
volved. What  countless  hours  and  ener- 
gies are  spent  over  euchre  and  whist! 
The  time  now  devoted  to  card  tables 
would  develop  a  race  of  literary  giants. 
Most  people  reduce  their  Church  subscrip- 
tion and  curtail  their  charities  before  they 
deny  themselves  a  theater  ticket.  And 
there  are  hosts  of  young  people  who  are 
sure  they  have  neither  time  nor  strength 
to  spare  until  they  have  attended  all  the 
germans  and  festivities  of  their  particu- 


182  The  Question  of 

lar  set.  Our  generation  has  gone  amuse- 
ment daft.  And  when  a  halt  is  called; 
when  some  earnest  soul  points  out  other 
open  doors  for  strength  and  money ;  when 
a  pastor  presses  the  more  sacred  claims 
of  life — the  poor,  the  Church,  the  King- 
dom— there  breaks  forth  a  perfect  chorus 
of  dissent.  ''What  if  I  do  spend  more 
time  on  cards  than  on  self-improvement? 
more  money  on  theaters  than  on  human 
helpfulness  ?  more  zeal  in  fun  than  on  the 
heroic  purposes  of  life?"  "Is  it  not  law- 
ful for  me  to  do  what  I  will  with  mine 
owoi?" 

The  saddest  history  ever  written  is  the 
history  of  buried  talents.  We  scarcely 
guess  the  peerless  endowments  of  men — 
there  are  so  many  wasted  powers.  Only 
God  knows  the  lights  that  have  gone 
out  under  a  bushel ;  the  immortal  treasure 
that  has  been  frittered  away;  the  genius 
that  has  been  lost.  I  have  heard  friends 
drum  on  the  piano,  and  have  been  sure 
that  they  might  have  been  interpreting 


An  Autocratic  Employer         183 

the  masters  of  melody  had  they  not 
thrown  away  their  gift.  We  had  in  col- 
lege a  certain  professor  who  used  to  hear 
our  declamations.  There  was  singular 
charm  in  his  voice  and  presence.  Rumor 
said  that  he  was  able  to  carry  vast  audi- 
ences off  their  feet.  Yet  he  never  em- 
ployed his  talent  except  to  celebrate  some 
sparkling  glass  or  passing  honor.  Not 
one  of  us  was  better  or  more  devoted  for 
knowing  him.  He  would  not  use  his  gift. 
It  is  said  that  Tissot  painted  his  first  reli- 
gious canvas  only  a  few  years  ago.  He 
had  worked  for  years  before  he  realized 
to  what  holy  use  he  might  turn  his  brush. 
And  I  am  afraid  there  are  other  artists 
who  may  never  awake  to  their  divinest 
function;  they  are  painting  to  sense  and 
passion;  making  it  harder  for  others  to 
be  good ;  never  guessing  the  privilege  they 
forfeit.  "Is  it  not  lawful  for  them  to  do 
what  they  will  with  their  own?" 

Consider  the  truth  in  a   realm   more 
sacred  still.     How  often  men  abuse  the 


184  The  Question  of 

ownership  of  love  and  friendship.  We 
ought  to  be  startled,  often,  at  our  treat- 
ment of  those  we  love  the  most. 

''Oft  for  our  own,  the  bitter  tone, 
Though  we  love  our  own  the  best." 

Courtesies  for  mere  acquaintances  and 
cruelty  for  friends;  consideration  for 
those  who  have  no  claim  upon  us  and 
hatefulness  for  those  who  deserve  all 
our  kindness — this  is  too  often  our  prac- 
tice. There  would  be  more  happy  homes 
if  men  remembered  that  marriage  fur- 
nishes no  right  to  play  the  boor.  I  have 
known  men  to  treat  their  wives  as  no  hu- 
man being  ought  to  be  permitted  to  treat  a 
faithful  horse.  I  know  children  who  go 
starved  for  the  very  kindnesses  and  caresses 
which  some  little  urchin  in  the  street  may 
receive.  And  even  while  I  write  of  it 
some  folks  are  saying:  'Ts  it  not  lawful 
for  me  to  do  what  I  will  with  mine  own?" 
The  question  begs  the  answer.  Such 
specious  pleading  meets  a  clear  and  vigor- 
ous denial.     It  is  only  too  obvious  that 


An  Autocratic  Employer         185 

in  many  ways  a  man  is  restrained  from 
doing  as  he  pleases  with  his  possessions. 
He  holds  all  property  subject  to  certain 
restrictions  and  reservations.  He  is 
hedged  about  with  all  sorts  of  limi- 
tations to  his  behavior.  His  liberty  is 
denied  by  a  thousand  voices.  To  abuse 
is  often  to  forfeit. 

Take  the  matter  from  a  legal  stand- 
point. Not  many  generations  have  gone 
since  the  day  in  which  a  man  might  kill 
his  slave  and  maim  his  son,  because  they 
belonged  to  him.  To-day  he  cannot  even 
beat  his  horse  without  danger  from  the 
courts.  We  have  societies  to  contest  one's 
right  to  maltreat  the  humblest  dumb 
beast,  and  societies  to  deal  with  brutal 
parents.  Not  even  a  mother's  ownership 
in  her  child  is  complete  enough  to  permit 
her  to  starve  it.  Jail  yawns  for  the  father 
who  fancies  he  can  do  as  he  pleases  with 
his  offspring.  Let  a  farmer  attempt  to 
sow  his  land  with  thistles:  though  his 
title  be  undisputed,  his  hand  must  quit 


186  The  Question  of 

its  task.  He  has  no  right  to  make  his 
own  acres  a  nuisance  to  his  neighbor. 
He  cannot  use  his  own  property  to  the 
hurt  of  some  one  else. 

After  the  terrible  explosion  in  Tar- 
rant's chemical  works  in  New  York  City, 
a  question  arose  as  to  the  amount  of  ex- 
plosives stored  in  the  building.  The  pro- 
prietors had  evidently  assumed  the  right 
to  do  as  they  pleased  in  the  matter.  Why 
should  not  a  merchant  stock  his  building 
to  suit  his  purpose?  Simply  because  the 
law  denies  to  any  man  the  right  to  en- 
danger other  lives  and  interests.  And  the 
famous  drug  firm  was  held  liable  for 
heavy  damages. 

According  to  what  is  known  as  the  law 
of  "eminent  domain,"  an  ownership  above 
one's  own,  if  it  becomes  necessary  for  a 
railroad  to  cross  a  certain  farm,  or  a 
dwelling  stands  in  the  way  of  a  projected 
public  improvement,  the  legal  owner  may 
object  in  vain.  Men  have  protested,  with 
oaths  and  pitchforks,  against  such  usurpa- 


An  Autocratic  Employer         187 

tion.  But  the  protest  was  merely  by-play 
to  State  or  County.  Law  assumes  the 
right  to  take  any  man's  property  at  any 
time  for  certain  uses  and  for  a  fair  con- 
sideration. All  legal  tenure  has  that  re- 
striction, and  he  who  does  not  like  the 
scheme  may  move  to  Labrador  or  Iceland. 
Taxes  mean  the  selfsame  thing — ^re- 
stricted ownership.  Part  of  every  acre  a 
man  owns,  and  of  every  dollar  he  earns, 
belongs  to  the  government  for  the  main- 
tenance of  public  schools;  for  the  mak- 
ing of  improvements;  for  the  salaries  of 
the  very  men  who  collect  the  taxes.  He 
who  has  no  children  of  his  own  must 
help  to  educate  his  neighbor's  children, 
and  the  veriest  backwoodsman  must  help 
pay  for  macadam  roads  and  marble  court- 
houses. He  cannot  do  what  he  will  with 
his  own.  Not  even  with  respect  to  his 
heirs.  In  some  States  he  cannot  sell  an 
acre  of  land  without  his  wife's  consent. 
He  cannot  will  away  the  interest  of  his 
ungrown    children.     There    are    kinship 


188  The  Question  of 

claims  with  which  he  is  bound  to  reckon, 
and  if  he  fails,  the  State  adjusts  the  mat- 
ter regardless  of  his  whim.  So  in  a  mul- 
titude of  ways  this  truth  is  reinforced, 
that,  even  from  a  legal  standpoint,  a  man 
may  not  do  as  he  pleases  with  his  own. 

But  this  truth  gathers  cogency  as  it 
reaches  higher  realms.  There  are  sanc- 
tions infinitely  weightier  than  those  of 
common  or  statute  law.  Law  as  ex- 
pounded by  the  courts  leaves  a  thousand 
loopholes  to  lawlessness.  Men  may  be 
conscienceless  scoundrels  without  jeop- 
ardizing their  property  or  their  necks. 
There  is  latitude  enough  this  side  of  pris- 
on for  men  to  damn  themselves  and  ruin 
their  fellows.  I  suppose  that  Jay  Gould 
was  one  of  the  most  monumental  robbers 
of  modern  times ;  yet  he  lived  within  the 
letter  of  the  law.  He  certainly  did  not 
use  his  hands  to  pick  his  associates'  pock- 
ets. He  never  broke  into  railroad  offices 
to  carry  away  their  assets.  He  simply 
made  use  of  the  common  practices  of 


An  Autocratic  Employer         189 

Wall  Street,  and  employed  his  wealth  to 
drive  others  to  despair.  No  one  will  ever 
know  the  hearts  he  broke,  the  suffering 
he  caused,  the  homes  he  wrecked.  A 
whole  Street  breathed  freer  when  it  knew 
that  Jay  Gould  was  dead.  Ah,  friends, 
there  is  something  wrong  with  a  business 
which  makes  its  gains  out  of  others'  pri- 
vation and  pain.  It  is  one  thing  to  gain 
by  legitimate  increase  of  value,  by  honest 
enterprise.  But  to  use  one's  means  as  a 
knife  to  let  out  another's  blood,  and  then 
to  revel  in  the  blood,  is  the  part  of  hawks 
and  wolves.  Some  one  says  that  "the 
first  passion  in  the  American  world  is  not 
to  produce  more,  but  to  get  what  some 
one  else  has  produced."  ''Money-making 
by  exchange  is  virtual  robbery,  and  is 
only  prevented  from  becoming  legal  rob- 
bery by  the  imperfection  of  the  law." 

Take  the  common  method  of  inflating 
or  depressing  a  market.  A  man  buys  all 
the  stock  he  can  at  panic  prices;  then 
booms  the  stock  until  everv  trader  wants 


190  The  Question  of 

it ;  then  sells  it  at  figures  that  bear  no  re- 
lation to  honest  values — and  leaves  the 
purchaser  to  discover  how  great  a  dupe 
he  is.  Such  was  Jay  Gould's  method. 
Such  is  the  ordinary  Wall  Street  method. 
It  is  simple  appropriation ;  making  money 
without  producing  it;  fraudulent  transfer 
from  one  pocket  to  another.  One  must 
lose  for  the  other  to  win.  Would  to  God 
that  every  such  unearned  dollar  were  the 
true  mirror  of  its  source!  To  see  on 
every  coin  the  record  of  its  former 
owner's  heartache;  to  trace  all  the  suf- 
fering w^hich  men's  sharp  practices  en- 
tail; to  follow  the  tragedies  of  those  who 
went  down  to  enable  the  winners  to  rise, 
might  rob  commercial  plunder  of  its  joy. 
No  man  has  the  right  to  employ  his 
wealth  or  skill  to  defraud  his  fellows. 

Or,  take  the  bargain  craze.  I  have  no 
notion  that  any  word  of  mine  will  upset 
the  bargain  counter,  or  keep  our  women 
away  from  it  when  the  newspapers  cry 
its  wares.     I  only  want  to  call  attention 


An  Autocratic  Employer         191 

to  the  real  significance  of  the  proceeding. 
It  is  an  attempt  to  clothe  one's  self  and  to 
stock  one's  household  for  less  than  the 
purchased  articles  are  worth.  Granting 
all  that  may  be  said  in  favor  of  the  pro- 
priety of  getting  the  largest  value  for 
one's  money,  I  still  maintain  that  bargain 
hunting  is  shark's  business.  If  a  thing  is 
worth  a  dollar  it  is  good  morals  to  pay  a 
dollar  for  it.  It  is  not  good  morals  to 
cheat  the  tradesman  out  of  his  profit,  or 
the  manufacturer  of  his  return,  or  the 
factory  hand  of  his  wage.  I  do  not  want 
the  blood  stains  of  piracy  or  highway 
robbery  on  the  merchandise  I  buy.  It  is 
never  lawful,  in  the  Christian  sense,  to 
use  one's  own  to  defraud  another. 

Just  here  we  touch  the  labor  problem. 
There  is,  doubtless,  an  arrogance  of  labor. 
Too  many  strikes  have  been  conceived  in 
malignancy  and  born  in  evil.  The  walk- 
ing delegate  is  often  a  mischief-maker, 
earning  his  salary  by  making  trouble. 
But  the  tap  root  of  the  misunderstanding 


192  The  Question  of 

between  labor  and  capital  is,  originally, 
the  insolence  of  wealth.  Employers  for- 
get that  privilege  carries  with  it  a  corre- 
sponding duty.  They  assume  the  right  to 
use  their  possessions  entirely  as  they 
please;  cutting  employees'  wages  to  the 
last  penny  the  employees  will  bear ;  turn- 
ing off  veterans  to  make  way  for  younger 
blood;  importing  the  cheapest  labor  they 
can  find.  A  new  truth  must  get  hold  of 
men  of  wealth — the  responsibility  of 
riches.  It  is  theirs  not  to  hoard,  but  to 
use ;  theirs  to  carry  gladness  into  a  multi- 
tude of  homes;  theirs  to  render  the  load 
of  drudgery  less  grievous;  theirs  to  bind 
the  employees  with  hooks  of  steel.  No 
man  who  makes  a  sophism  of  our 
Scripture  question  is  fit  to  be  rich  and 
prosperous. 

So  of  power.  Too  many  folks  assume 
that  power  means  exemption  from  bur- 
den. The  average  politician  is  after  the 
immunities  and  emoluments  of  office. 
Few  remember  that  power  carries  with  it 


An  Autocratic  Employer         193 

obligation ;  that  a  man  must  stoop  in  pro- 
portion to  the  height  of  the  eminence  on 
which  he  stands.  You  recall  what  Jesus 
said  when  certain  of  His  disciples  were 
clamoring  for  power :  "Ye  know  that  the 
princes  of  the  Gentiles  exercise  dominion 
over  them,  and  they  that  are  great  exer- 
cise authority  upon  (or,  lord  it  over) 
them.  But  it  shall  not  be  so  among  you  ; 
but  whosoever  will  be  great  among  you, 
let  him  be  your  minister;  and  whosoever 
will  be  chief  among  you,  let  him  be  your 
servant."  Our  generation  is  evidently  a 
long  reach  removed  from  such  concep- 
tion of  the  exercise  of  power.  Yet  such 
is  the  divine — the  sane — prescription,  and 
we  shall  never  attain  to  the  true  domin- 
ion of  the  world  until  we  adopt  Christ's 
method. 

One  other  realm  I  want  to  mention — 
scholarship.  Scholarship  has  too  often 
been  used  as  a  club  to  beat  out  the  brains 
of  faith.  Here  was  Thomas  Paine's  mis- 
take. Nobody  denies  his  gifts ;  most  people 
13 


194  The  Question  of 

admit  the  kindness  of  his  heart.  He  was 
never  built  to  be  a  destroyer  of  faith.  I 
have  often  wondered  that  he  was  able  to 
feed  his  own  heart  on  the  hard  husks  of 
unbelief.  But  he  seemed  to  feel  it  his  pre- 
rogative to  scatter  his  poison  wherever 
men  would  receive.  Hence  he  went  up 
and  down  the  land,  snatching  the  crumbs 
from  hungry  hearts,  knocking  the 
crutches  from  trembling  faith,  burning 
men's  household  gods  before  their  very 
eyes — one  of  the  biggest  hearts  and  most 
reckless  vandals  of  any  age.  According 
to  the  highest  code  he  had  no  right  to  use 
his  doctrine  as  he  pleased. 

Thus  we  reach  the  loftiest  bearing  of 
our  question.  I  have  called  to  mind  that 
certain  uses  of  one's  possessions  are  not 
even  legal.  I  have  tried,  also,  to  show 
that  usages  permissible  from  legal  stand- 
points are  interdicted  on  moral  grounds. 
Now  I  want  to  speak  of  a  realm  above 
both  these,  a  realm  in  which  our  truth  is 
spiritually  discerned.     It  is  not  sufficient 


An  Autocratic  Employer         195 

for  a  man  to  keep  the  law.  It  will  not 
even  do  to  consult  the  ethical  code.  A 
man  must  learn  the  spiritual  meaning  and 
purpose  of  his  possessions.  There  is  no 
absolute  ownership  among  men.  We  are 
merely  "stewards  of  the  manifold  mercies 
of  God."  We  live  on  His  acres;  we  man- 
age His  estates;  we  bank  His  treasure. 
Whether  our  property  be  land  or  truth 
or  talent,  we  hold  it  by  His  grace;  the 
title  is  in  Him. 

This  is  the  truth  of  the  familiar  parable 
in  which  the  lord  came  and  reckoned 
with  his  servants.  There  is  a  reckoning 
on  every  investment  of  God  in  us.  The 
award  is  always  according  to  men's  em- 
ployment of  God's  investment.  The  high- 
est purpose  of  wealth  is  the  enrichment  of 
souls.  A  Rockefeller  ought  to  be  the 
finest  type  of  man.  He  who  allows  his 
money  to  shrivel  him  would  better,  a 
thousand  times,  be  poor.  Position  means 
opportunity  to  expand.  Talent  is  like  the 
equipment  of  a  gymnasium ;  it  must  make 


196  The  Question  of 

its  owner  a  stronger  man.  To  have,  and 
not  to  use  for  self -improvement,  is  worse 
than  not  to  have. 

But  possessions  have  an  even  higher 
function  than  that  of  self-development. 
Money  will  do  more  than  pay  wages. 
Power  can  work  greater  miracles  than 
mere  offices  of  duty.  Talent  has  a  higher 
mission  than  that  of  display.  These  gifts 
are  granted  to  hasten  the  advent  of  Mes- 
siah's kingdom.  And  every  time  a  man 
uses  his  means  to  bind  up  broken  hearts; 
wherever  a  ruler  makes  his  throne  the 
bulwark  of  truth  and  kindness;  wherever 
a  soul  employs  its  strength  to  remind  men 
of  holiness  and  Heaven,  the  ^'Kingdom 
comes"  in  grace  and  beauty. 

"O  Lord,  I  pray 

That  for  this  day 
I  may  not  swerve 

By  foot  or  hand 

From  Thy  command, 
Not  to  be  served,  but  to  serve. 

"This,  too,  I  pray, 
That  for  this  day 


An  Autocratic  Employer         197 

No  love  of  ease 

Nor  pride  prevent 

My  good  intent, 
Not  to  be  pleased,  but  to  please. 

"And  if  I  may, 

I'd   have   this   day 
Strength  from  above 

To  set  my  heart 

In  heavenly  art, 
Not  to  be  loved,  but  to  love." 


THE  aUESTION  OF  A  READY 
CRITIC 


"  'Tis  only  when  they  spring  to  heaven  that  angels 
Reveal  themselves  to  you;  they  sit  all  day 
Beside  you,  and  lie  down  at  night  beside  you 
Who  care  not  for  their  presence,  muse  or  sleep, 
And  all  at  once  they  leave  you  and  you  know 
them."  — Browning. 

"We  are  full  of  these  superstitions  of  sense,  the 
worship  of  magnitude.  We  call  the  poet  inactive, 
because  he  is  not  a  president,  a  merchant,  or  a 
porter.  We  adore  an  institution,  and  do  not  see 
that  it  is  founded  on  a  thought  which  we  have. 
But  real  action  is  in  silent  moments.  The  epochs 
of  life  are  not  in  the  visible  facts  of  our  choice 
of  a  calling,  our  marriage,  our  acquisition  of  an 
office  and  the  like,  but  in  a  silent  thought  by  the 
wayside  as  we  walk." — Emerson. 

"The  natural  man  receiveth  not  the  things  of  the 
Spirit  of  God :  .  .  .  neither  can  he  know  them, 
because  they  are  spiritually  discerned." — Paul. 


''WHY  WAS  NOT  THIS  OINTMENT  SOLD 

FOR  THREE  HUNDRED  PENCE  AND 

GIVEN  TO  THE  POOR?^' 

It  never  occurred  to  Mary,  probably, 
that  her  gracious  deed  would  bring  down 
criticism  upon  her.  She  had  long  been 
waiting  for  an  opportunity  to  do  some- 
thing for  Him  who  was  always  doing 
something  for  her.  But  He  was  so  con- 
stantly busy  with  ministry  to  others,  there 
was  scarcely  an  opportunity  for  others  to 
minister  to  Him.  And,  indeed,  it  seems 
rarely  to  have  occurred  to  the  disciples 
that  He  who  filled  their  days  with  bene- 
faction might  sometimes  be  hungry  for  a 
tender  office  toward  Himself.  It  is  one 
penalty  of  the  unselfish  life,  that  it  must 
often  go  without  those  gracious  requitals, 
which,  if  the  world  could  know,  would 
enrich  its  service. 

The  guests  were  busy  at  table  when 

201 


202  The  Question  of 

Mary  slipped  into  the  room.  Engrossed 
as  men  are  wont  to  be  when  a  tempting 
repast  is  before  them,  none  of  them  no- 
ticed the  quick  motions  of  the  woman. 
They  talked  on,  unconscious  of  the  most 
tender  tribute  which  was  being  rendered 
in  their  midst,  and  only  as  the  pervasive 
perfume  filled  the  room  did  they  look  up 
at  all.  Then  what  a  picture!  There,  at 
the  foot  of  the  couch  on  which  the  Christ 
reclined,  sat  a  woman  as  perfectly  unmind- 
ful of  the  disciples'  presence  as  they  had 
been  of  hers;  her  face  aglow,  her  soul  in 
her  eyes,  as  she  wiped  the  dear  feet  with 
her  hair.  An  empty  spikenard  box  near  by 
told  the  lavishness  of  the  gift.  No  word, 
I  fancy,  was  spoken  at  the  first ;  there  are 
acts  so  full  of  holy  sentiment  and  devo- 
tion they  compel  men  into  silence.  Then 
Judas  found  his  voice :  "Why  was  not  this 
ointment  sold  for  three  hundred  pence  and 
given  to  the  poor?"  Such  was  the  un- 
blushing question  of  the  financial  man  of 
the  Apostolic  company. 


A  Ready  Critic  203 

Judas  evidently  thought  he  was  making 
a  good  point.  This  was  the  Teacher  who 
for  three  years,  nearly,  had  been  incul- 
cating lessons  of  practical  religion.  He 
had  been  trying  to  educate  men  to  the 
pitch  at  which  they  should  prove  their 
love  by  helpfulness  and  charity ;  cut  short 
their  formal  prayers,  sometimes,  to  answer 
a  cry  of  need.  He  had  often  inveighed 
against  the  senseless  extravagance  and 
criminal  luxuriousness  of  the  day.  Yet 
on  the  feet  of  this  same  Teacher  three 
hundred  pennyworth  of  perfume  had  just 
been  poured!  Judas  wondered  that  his 
Master  could  keep  still.  How  many  poor 
the  money  would  have  fed.  While  they 
were  sitting  there,  enjoying  the  rich  fra- 
grance, men,  women,  and  little  children 
were  going  supperless  to  bed.  Surely, 
Mary  would  have  done  her  Master  more 
signal  honor  had  she  dedicated  the  same 
money  to  suppers  and  creature  comforts 
for  the  poor.  To  express  her  whole  de- 
votion in  a  single  act  of  womanly  senti- 


204  The  Question  of 

ment;  to  pour  this  treasure  upon  One 
whom  it  could  not  possibly  enrich;  to 
spend  fifty  dollars  in  a  perishing  perfume 
instead  of  coats  and  shoes  for  wretched 
outcasts,  seemed  reckless  waste. 

So  reasoned  Judas.  And  under  ordi- 
nary circumstances  his  reasoning  would 
have  been  correct.  I  have  never  believed 
John  to  be  quite  fair  in  his  estimate  of 
Judas.  Except  that  Judas  had  turned  out 
to  be  a  traitor,  John  would  never  have 
stigmatized  his  conduct  on  this  occasion 
as  that  of  a  thief.  Because,  later,  Judas 
proved  to  be  a  rascal,  John  conceived  that 
he  must  have  been  one  when  he  dared  to 
criticise  the  ointment.  We  are  constant- 
ly throwing  back  upon  innocent  deeds  the 
lurid  light  of  some  later  crime.  Because 
Benedict  Arnold  turned  traitor,  men  have 
looked  for  treachery  all  through  his  life. 
Yet  I  believe  there  were  days  when,  in  the 
breast  of  that  same  Arnold,  there  beat  a 
patriotism  as  strong  and  fine  as  throbbed 
in  Washington's  or  Franklin's.     The  fa- 


A  Ready  Critic  205 

mous  Abelard  was  not,  necessarily,  a  sen- 
sual man  at  heart  because,  after  years  of 
monastic  devotion,  he  lapsed  from  virtue 
and  betrayed  the  beautiful  Heloise.  We 
ought  to  give  men  credit  for  what  they 
seem  to  be,  believing,  rather,  that  in  an 
evil  hour  they  fell  from  their  high  estate, 
than  that  all  their  lives  they  were  vaga- 
bonds and  wantons.  We  have  never  been 
just  toward  Judas.  We  have  condemned 
him  in  everything,  because  he  was  treach- 
erous in  one.  But  there  was  a  time  when 
Judas  really  loved  his  Master.  Days  there 
were  in  which  he,  too,  saw  the  heavens 
opened;  moments  when  under  the  power 
of  some  great  passion  he,  too,  could  have 
died  for  Christ.  It  is  passing  credence 
that  Jesus  should  have  selected  an  inbred 
ruffian  to  preach  His  Gospel  for  three 
years.  Judas  was  once  as  promising  a  dis- 
ciple as  John  or  Andrew.  And  I  cannot 
see  any  monstrosity  in  his  unfortunate 
criticism  of  Mary.  It  was  just  like  his 
hard,  commercial  head ;  just  the  comment 


206  The  Question  of 

to  expect  from  a  man  who  was  grasping 
a  new  truth.  And  I  notice  that  in  the 
other  account  of  this  same  incident  all  the 
disciples  joined  in  the  protest :  "To  what 
purpose  was  this  waste?" 

There  was,  as  I  have  said,  good  com- 
mon sense  in  Judas'  comment.  I  am  grate- 
ful to  live  in  a  day  when  there  is  account- 
ed to  be  more  true  religion  in  bread  for 
hungry  children  and  "Herald  Free  Ice 
Funds"  than  in  all  high  altars  and  swing- 
ing censers.  Ingersoll  might  not  have 
been  the  scoffer  that  he  became  if  in  the 
early  days,  when  his  infidel  opinions  were 
forming,  he  had  seen  less  hunting  down 
of  heretics  and  more  Christian  helpful- 
ness and  love.  It  is  said  of  a  famous 
agnostic  author  that,  after  listening  to 
a  recent  sermon  on  the  religion  of  kind- 
ness, he  turned  to  one  of  our  bishops  and 
remarked:  "If  they  had  preached  that 
kind  of  Gospel  when  I  was  a  boy  I,  too, 
might  have  been  a  preacher." 

Time  was  when  the  grandest  thing  that 


A  Ready  Critic  207 

a  man  could  do  for  God  was  to  build  a 
temple  to  Him.  I  have  recently  been  re- 
reading a  description  of  Solomon's  tem- 
ple, and  I  do  not  wonder  that  the  Roman 
conqueror  paused  spellbound  when  he  be- 
held it.  Such  marbles  as  are  rarely  seen 
to-day,  columns  of  wondrous  size  and 
beauty,  gold  in  the  most  elaborate  pro- 
fusion, made  it  a  spectacle  almost  beyond 
description.  But  that  Jewish  temple  was 
characteristic  of  a  day  when  beggars 
starved  in  the  streets  and  cripples  went 
unpitied.  To-day  we  build  no  such  mam- 
moth piles.  We  have  no  cathedrals  to 
compare  with  those  of  Milan  and  Cologne. 
But  our  land  is  dotted  over  with  institu- 
tions of  charity  and  benefaction.  If  the 
churches  have  decreased  in  magnificence 
and  grandeur,  the  hospitals  and  asylums 
have  multiplied  a  hundredfold.  For  men 
are  beginning  to  believe  they  may  leave 
some  splendid  shrines  unbuilt,  while  they 
pour  out  their  means  to  bind  up  broken 
hearts  and  relieve  the  orphans'  need. 


208  The  Question  of 

The  noblest  memorials  of  Egyptian 
glory  are  her  vast  pyramids.  What  mass- 
ive structures  they  are!  We  can  hardly 
estimate  their  cost.  They  drained  the 
treasure  of  heathen  lands;  they  wore  out 
generations  of  human  toilers — to  form  a 
mausoleum  for  dead  men's  bones.  There 
are  still  some  citizens,  I  suppose,  who  are 
elaborately  providing  for  an  immortality 
of  memory  in  bronze  and  stone.  The 
w^orld  will  not  be  able  to  forget  them  be- 
cause it  must  forever  stumble  over  their 
monuments  and  sarcophagi.  Notwith- 
standing which,  the  sentiment  is  grow- 
ing, that  a  man  can  afford  to  lie  under  a 
plain  pine  board,  if  need  be,  while  the 
world  remembers  him  in  some  Christly 
institution  of  his  endowing;  some  fund 
for  waifs  and  sufferers. 

The  Church  can  never  repeat  the  en- 
thusiasm which  preached  and  fought  the 
Crusades.  That  marvelous  spectacle  of 
whole  nations  moving  toward  the  Manger 
shrine  and  Tomb  will  never  be  seen  again. 


A  Ready  Critic  209 

But  there  is  a  far  vaster  army  of  men  and 
women,  with  no  regaUa  or  pomp  about 
them,  who  feel  that  they  bring  Christ 
greater  honor  as  they  seek  out  His  loved 
and  lost  throughout  the  world.  Despite 
the  decay  of  creeds  and  churches,  there  is 
more  good  religion  in  the  world  than  ever. 
You  remember  the  vehement  commander 
who  caused  the  statue  of  St.  Peter  to  be 
pulled  down  and  melted  into  coin,  that 
St.  Peter,  like  his  Master,  might  go  about 
"doing  good."  Such  is  the  spirit  of  our 
age.  Men  are  learning  to  translate  their 
worship  into  blessings  for  the  needy. 
There  is  less  patience  with  churchly 
forms,  but  more  with  men  and  women. 
There  are  less  long  prayers,  but  more 
heavenly  ministries  on  earth.  There  are 
less  devotees  to  altars,  but  far  more  re- 
productions of  the  Christ;  far  more  to 
hear  Him  say,  ''Inasmuch  as  ye  have  done 
it  unto  one  of  the  least  of  these  my  breth- 
ren,  ye   have   done   it   unto   me."     The 

spikenard  is  being  turned  into  bread. 
14 


210  The  Question  of 

But  this  is  not  the  whole  story.  When 
Judas  attempted  to  generahze  he  made  a 
failure.  There  are  certain  conditions  un- 
der which  it  is  grander  to  pour  spikenard 
upon  the  Master's  feet  than  to  feed  the 
poor  or  help  the  outcast.  Judas  carried 
his  utilitarianism  too  far.  There  were 
some  beauties  he  could  not  measure  with 
his  yardstick.  There  were  real  values  not 
reducible  according  to  his  tables.  The 
rainbow  has  no  commercial  rating.  Not 
everyone  can  appreciate  the  glory  of  a 
sunset.  No  sane  man  would  think  of 
estimating  the  worth  of  an  oratorio  by 
holding  his  hand  against  the  bellows  or 
counting  the  metal  in  the  pipes.  Some 
things  must  forever  stand  above  our 
scales  and  crucibles.  Those  three  hun- 
dred pence  would  have  been  poorly  spent 
on  loaves  and  coats  that  day.  The  trouble 
with  all  practicality  is  that  it  goes  too  far. 
It  runs  mad,  sometimes,  as  I  believe  it 
inclines  to  do  to-day. 

Here  they  are  cutting  away  the  Pal- 


A  Ready  Critic  211 

isades  to  make  paving  stones  for  modern 
roads.  If  they  keep  on  cutting,  it  will  not 
be  long  before  we  shall  look  in  vain  for 
those  grand  old  landmarks.  In  the  com- 
mercial sense,  stone  in  a  good  roadway 
is  worth  more  than  stone  in  picturesque- 
ness.  Steamers  will  make  quite  as  good 
time  to  Albany,  I  suppose,  when  the  Pal- 
isades are  gone!  But  it  has  always 
seemed  to  me  that  those  stone  bulwarks 
of  the  river  have  a  value  entirely  apart 
from  their  intrinsic  worth  in  slate  and 
granite.  Nobody  will  ever  estimate  the 
satisfaction  they  have  brought  to  human 
hearts;  for  by  such  things  in  nature  are 
men  made  more  fit  for  earth  and  Heaven. 
If  men  shall  ever  lose  the  capacity  to  be 
moved  by  the  beautiful,  it  will  not  make 
much  difference  what  sort  of  pavements 
they  then  may  travel. 

We  had  in  my  college  days  a  cadav- 
erous professor  who  went  among  us  by  the 
nickname  of  *'Digamma" — in  token  of 
his  lifelong  devotion  to  the  obsolete  Greek 


212  The  Question  of 

letter  of  that  name.  Poor,  stoop-shoul- 
dered little  man,  I  can  remember  how  we 
used  to  pity  him  his  thankless  quest ;  and 
wonder  if  a  generous  beefsteak  would  not 
do  him  more  good  than  additional  Greek 
learning.  He  was  in  the  economic  sense 
a  "non-producer."  He  increased  the 
world's  supply  of  corn  and  wheat  not  a 
single  bushel.  He  did  nothing,  directly, 
to  maintain  the  nation's  credit.  He  kept 
on  studying  year  after  year,  delving  in 
ponderous  tomes  and  ancient  manuscripts, 
growing  leaner  all  the  while,  until  it 
seemed  that  a  good  healthy  breeze  would 
blow  him  away.  But  here  is  the  stubborn 
fact :  that,  when  all  the  grain  produced  in 
his  day  has  been  consumed,  and  the  bodies 
that  consumed  it  have  moldered  back  to 
dust,  his  great  discoveries  in  language, 
the  new  light  he  brought  to  ancient  puz- 
zles, the  fine  shades  of  meaning  he  evoked 
will  be  blessing  generations  as  yet 
unborn. 

Mozart  never  held  a  plow  or  drove  a 


A  Ready  Critic  213 

plane.  He  had  to  be  supported  in  idle- 
ness, as  some  would  say,  in  order  to  pro- 
duce his  masterpieces.  While  gunsmiths 
were  forging  weapons,  and  masons  were 
laying  stone,  he  was  only  writing  music. 
But  to-day  those  ancient  muskets  are  out 
of  service.  Most  of  the  walls  his  con- 
temporaries built  have  crumbled.  But  the 
sublime  harmonies  he  wrought,  unim- 
paired by  passing  decades,  still  thrill  and 
bless  the  world.  I  suppose  that  in  one 
sense  Munkacsy  might  better  have  been  a 
grocer's  clerk  or  shipbuilder.  He  mixed 
his  colors  and  held  his  brush  as  though 
eternities  were  depending  upon  his 
genius ;  and  died  poor  at  last.  But  that  is 
not  the  whole  story.  I  know  of  at  least 
one  man  who  was  led  into  the  Kingdom 
by  Munkacsy's  painting — ''Christ  before 
Pilate" — and  I  doubt  not  that  coming 
ages  will  reveal  scores  of  souls  made  more 
strong  and  spiritual  by  gazing  upon  even 
cheap  reprints  of  that  wonderful  picture. 
Here  is  the  image  of  a  Man  who,  ac- 


214  The  Question  of 

cording  to  the  record,  ''went  about  doing 
good."  Wherever  He  came  Wind  eyes 
flew  open  and  withered  Hmbs  grew  strong. 
He  fed  the  multitudes  and  eased  the  suf- 
ferers. And  yet,  when  all  is  said,  if 
Christ's  special  mission  was  to  dole  out 
miraculous  bread  and  heal  the  lepers,  He 
failed.  He  left  more  hungry  folk  in  Gali- 
lee than  He  ever  attempted  to  feed.  There 
were  more  lepers  unhealed  than  He  ever 
healed.  Though  His  path  through  Pal- 
estine was  like  a  sunbeam,  there  were 
many  places  on  which  the  sunbeam  did 
not  shine.  He  came  from  Heaven  to  do 
a  diviner  thing  than  to  fill  men's  stom- 
achs and  to  allay  their  pains.  He  came 
to  bring  holiness  to  men;  to  fill  the 
world's  night  with  prophecies  of  morn- 
ing; to  make  for  Heaven  by  putting 
Heaven  in  human  hearts.  And  men  may 
be  most  like  him  as  they  break  their  ala- 
baster boxes,  sometimes. 

But  what  is  there  to  take  with  us  from 
a  study  of  this  Scripture?     What  spe- 


A  Ready  Critic  215 

cial  word  to  recur  to-morrow?  One  rea- 
son that  husbands  and  wives  do  not  make 
better  work  of  living  together,  lies,  I  be- 
lieve, just  here.  Every  woman  has  some- 
thing of  the  spirit  of  the  woman  who 
broke  the  spikenard  box.  It  was  pecul- 
iarly a  woman's  tribute.  And  every  true 
woman  brings  to  the  man  she  loves  just 
such  an  offering.  She  is  glad  to  take  a 
thousand  steps  and  to  meet  a  thousand 
demands  of  wifehood,  motherhood.  But 
life  means  more  to  her  than  merely  keep- 
ing a  house  clean  and  purveying  the  kind 
of  food  her  husband  likes.  She  loves! 
And  we  husbands — we  let  her  sew  on  but- 
tons and  darn  our  stockings,  andT^ear  our 
children;  and  then,  if  we  keep  her  sup- 
plied with  pocket  money,  and  put  good 
clothes  upon  her  back,  and  sometime 
bring  home  a  diamond  ring,  we  think  that 
is  enough.  And  have,  withal,  as  little  ap- 
preciation of  a  woman's  heart  as  had  this 
Judas.  Some  wives  would  be  willing  to 
forego  a  new  spring  dress  or  a  pattern 


216  The  Question  of 

hat  for  Easter  if  they  could  receive  more 
spiritual  evidences  of  our  love. 

If  there  is  one  subject  that  can  be  count- 
ed upon  to  stir  unpleasantly  the  average 
man  it  is  the  subject  of  "Foreign  Mis- 
sions." The  idea  of  sending  good  money 
after  bad  heathen !  Are  there  not  enough 
sinners  right  here  in  our  ov^n  commu- 
nity? Where  is  the  sense  in  trying  to 
convert  the  Hindus,  when  home  streets 
are  thronged  with  children  begging 
bread?  I  have  every  sympathy  with  the 
poor  heathen  here  at  home.  They  ought 
to  have  the  Gospel  first.  "Beginning  at 
Jerusalem"  was  the  ancient  command- 
ment. But  I  deny  that  there  are  addi- 
tional sinners  here  at  home  because 
there  are  fewer  in  Bombay.  I  doubt  if 
the  thousands  we  send  across  the  sea  have 
made  our  own  poor  poorer.  Rum  makes 
a  larger  figure  in  the  account  of  poverty 
than  do  "Foreign  Missions."  Meantime, 
I  am  debtor  to  every  man  whom  I  can 
help,  whether  he  lives  next  door  or  in 


A  Ready  Critic  217 

China.  And  until  the  light  of  our  great 
civilization  breaks  clear  around  the  world 
our  debt  will  not  be  paid. 

One  thought  more.  There  are  people 
who  believe  in  the  Church  as  a  sort  of 
social  club,  or  distributing  agency  for 
charity.  According  to  their  notion  the 
Church's  work  is  done  when  the  strangers 
have  all  been  welcomed  and  the  poor  have 
all  been  fed.  But  there  are  great  crying 
wants  which  cannot  be  met  with  good-fel- 
lowship and  loaves  of  bread.  There  are 
heart-windows  which  can  never  be  thrown 
open  by  a  hearty  handshake.  There  are 
spiritual  enrichments  that  souls  are  need- 
ing. There  are  beautiful  transformations 
which  are  to  make  men  fit  for  Heaven. 
We  are  dealing  with  men  immortal,  and 
sometimes  the  breaking  of  the  spikenard 
box  is  more  precious  than  the  feeding  of 
the  poor. 


XI 

THE   QUESTION    OF  AN   IMPRISONED 
PROPHET 


"He  grieves  more  than  is  necessary  who  grieves 
before  it  is  necessary." — Seneca. 

"Ah,  the  endless  afterwhiles ! — 
Leagues  on  leagues,  and  miles  on  miles, 
In  the  distance  far  withdrawn. 
Stretching  on,  and  on,  and  on !" — Riley. 

"Unbelief  is  only  a  phase  of  impatience.  Let 
us  keep  ourselves  from  mental  panic,  for  that  is 
the  close  ally  of  pantheism.  In  the  higher  realms 
of  intellectual  life  and  activity  it  is  good  for  men 
to  remember  this  benediction  pronounced  upon 
those  who  seek  and  hope  and  quietly  wait." — 
Selhy. 

"The  kingdom  of  God  cometh  not  with  obser- 
vation."— Jesus. 


''ART  THOU    HE  THAT   SHOULD  COME, 
OR  LOOK  WE  FOR  ANOTHER  ?»^ 

This  question  from  the  prison  at 
Machaerus  was  a  veritable  heart  cry. 
John's  uncompromising  mission  had  end- 
ed abruptly  some  few  months  previous. 
He  was  paying  the  usual  penalty  for  being 
a  prophetic  voice.  The  days  went  wea- 
rily, we  may  believe.  Enforced  inaction  is 
keenest  torture  to  a  temperament  such  as 
John's.  Used  to  the  freedom  of  field  and 
forest,  untrammeled  of  spirit  as  the  moun- 
tain airs  that  once  had  played  upon  his 
face,  a  stalwart  unconquered  soul,  it  was 
simply  maddening  to  hear  the  key  turn  in 
the  lock.  Every  prison  mess  made  him 
freshly  hungry  for  the  former  ''locusts 
and  wild  honey."  Even  the  visits  of  his 
few  devoted  friends  served  but  to  accentu- 
ate his  sense  of  helplessness.  He  was  a 
caged  eagle,  wearing  his  wings  against 
the  unpitying  bars  that  shut  him  in. 


222  The  Question  of 

Nor  was  the  news  from  the  outside 
world  calculated  to  abate  John's  fever. 
History  had  been  making  rapidly  during 
the  few  months  of  his  imprisonment. 
The  Man  whom  he  had  announced,  and 
afterward  baptized  at  Jordan,  was  hardly 
meeting  John's  expectations.  John  had 
described  Him  as  a  mightier  spirit  than 
himself,  whose  "fan  would  be  in  His 
hand,"  and  who  would  burn  the  chaff 
with  ''fire  unquenchable."  Yet,  from  all 
accounts,  this  later  Prophet  was  so  far 
from  heroic  in  His  method  that  Mag- 
dalens  dared  to  look  up  into  His  face,  and 
little  children  nestled  in  His  arms.  John 
was  amazed,  bewildered.  Had  his  un- 
compromising zeal  gone  all  for  naught? 
Finally,  when  he  could  bear  the  agony  no 
longer,  he  commissioned  two  of  his  dis- 
ciples with  the  eager  inquiry:  "Art  thou 
He  that  should  come,  or  look  we  for 
another?" 

For  which  most  rational  inquiry  John 
has  been  subjected  to  all  sorts  of  criti- 


An  Imprisoned  Prophet  223 

cisms.  He  has  been  called  peevish,  un- 
generous, skeptical.  Clothing  Jesus  in 
all  the  majesty  and  grace  of  modern  rev- 
erence, men  have  wondered  how  John 
could  so  far  stultify  himself  as  to  phrase 
this  question.  Strange  that  he  should  not 
trust  the  very  Personage  whom  he  had 
heralded.  Pitiful  to  be  asking  at  that 
late  day  in  his  calendar:  ^'Art  thou  He 
that  should  come,  or  look  we  for 
another?" 

Somehow  I  can  find  no  fault  with  the 
question.  It  was  both  legitimate  and  sane 
— phrased  with  all  the  eagerness  and 
frankness  of  the  man.  Remember  he  was 
depressed,  dispirited.  This  was  not  a 
question  of  the  sunlight ;  it  was  a  question 
of  the  night  and  storm.  It  was  born  amid 
doubts  and  fears.  We  must  always  make 
allowance,  in  our  estimates  of  men,  for 
the  inevitable  sag  of  human  nature.  No 
man  can  be  at  his  best  day  after  day.  No 
soul  should  be  judged  during  its  eclipse. 
A    certain    eminent     Presbyterian    was 


224  The  Question  of 

asked  by  his  pastor  if  he  "enjoyed 
the  full  assurance  of  salvation?"  "Well, 
I  am  sure  I  am  saved/'  was  the  reply, 
''but  I  never  enjoy  anything  when  the 
wind  is  East."  There  are  nervous  and 
physical  reactions  to  which  every  human 
being  is  heir.  After  strong  effort  or  long 
suspense  they  come.  And  it  is  no  more 
fair  to  judge  a  soul  during  such  seasons 
of  reaction  than  to  take  the  tone  of  a 
Stradivarius  violin  when  the  strings  are 
down. 

I  have  heard  of  an  eminent  actress  who, 
after  carrying  an  audience  clear  off  its 
feet  by  her  magnificent  acting,  would  go 
to  her  dressing  room  and  cry  like  a  little 
child,  vowing  she  would  never  stand  be- 
fore the  footlights  again.  One  of  our 
most  successful  ministers  told  me  that  he 
could  scarcely  get  out  of  the  church  quick- 
ly enough  after  the  sermon  was  through 
— so  complete  and  deadening  was  his 
sense  of  failure.  I  saw  a  woman  pass 
through  a  terrific  ordeal  of  domestic  sor- 


An  Imprisoned  Prophet         225 

row  without  tear  or  audible  cry.  For 
days  she  carried  a  stricken  household  upon 
her  own  brave  heart.  She  met  all  de- 
mands on  strength  and  nerve  power.  She 
seemed  to  be  made  of  steel.  But  when 
the  first  agony  was  past  and  the  house- 
hold resumed  its  normal  routine,  she 
lapsed  into  such  a  paroxysm  of  sobs  that 
it  seemed  as  if  she  would  die. 

William  Cowper  could  never  have  writ- 
ten his  most  famous  hymn  had  he  not 
passed  through  the  torment  of  great  de- 
pression. It  was  after  one  of  those  terri- 
ble seasons,  in  the  gloom  of  which  he  so 
completely  lost  his  way  that  he  was  at 
the  point  of  suicide,  he  wrote : 

"God  moves  in  a  mysterious  way 
His  wonders  to  perform." 

Philip  Melanchthon  was  often  misunder- 
stood and  sometimes  reproached  by  Lu- 
ther for  the  streaks  of  melancholy  to 
which  the  former  was  a  victim.  As  mat- 
ter of  fact,  he  could  no  more  beat  off  the 


226  The  Question  of 

depressing  seasons  than  he  could  prevent 
the  sultriness  which  often  follows  a  thun- 
derstorm. It  is  the  part  of  a  high-strung 
nature  to  be  easily  thrown  out  of  key. 
Elijah  under  a  juniper  tree  is  a  true  pic- 
ture of  human  life.  No  man  can  continue 
to  live  at  high  tension.  The  fire  test  of 
Carmel  was  inevitably  followed  by  the 
corrosion  of  human  doubt.  He  who  flies 
highest  falls  farthest  when  reaction  sets 
in.  Even  the  Master  was  no  stranger  to 
these  moments  of  transient  eclipse.  It 
was  in  one  of  them  that  He  cried  out  in 
the  Garden,  "My  soul  is  exceeding  sor- 
rowful." It  was  human,  only,  that  after 
comforting  the  disciples,  He  should  need 
some  one  to  comfort  Him.  So  there  was 
no  unworthiness  in  the  Baptist's  cry  for  a 
fresh  certification  of  his  faith.  It  was  his 
heart  that  spoke  in  this  ancient  question. 
He  had  toiled  so  earnestly  for  years  that 
when  the  reaction  came  he  scarcely  knew 
what  to  believe.  ''Art  thou  He  that  should 
come,  or  look  we  for  another?" 


An  Imprisoned  Prophet  227 

But  there  was  more  than  depression  in 
the  Baptist's  question.  Enforced  inaction 
had  made  him  morbid.  Out  under  the 
open  sky,  with  the  sting  of  the  wind  on 
his  cheek,  John  would  never  have  given 
utterance  to  this  heart  cry.  He  would 
hardly  have  doubted  the  issue  of  the  cam- 
paign so  long  as  his  own  powers  were 
still  actively  engaged.  Activity  is  a  sav- 
ing thing  for  most  folks.  Activity  would 
have  saved  John  from  this  depressing 
hour.  But  shut  away  in  prison,  his  ve- 
hement hands  denied  their  zealous  func- 
tion, his  fearless  voice  drowned  in  dun- 
geon walls,  no  wonder  that  he  was  stag- 
gered. Dr.  Hillis  tells  of  an  imprisoned 
knight  who  one  day  heard  his  own  troops 
go  by.  They  were  looking  for  him,  it 
seemed.  Close  up  to  his  dungeon  they 
came,  only  to  turn  away.  His  shouts  went 
no  further  than  the  wall  He  could  only 
groan  and  pray — an  enforced  idler  when 
the  Cause  was  needing  men.  Then  he 
began  to  doubt.     He  doubted  men  and 


228  The  Question  of 

God;  and  died  with  the  chill  of  unbeHef 
upon  his  heart. 

It  is  when  Hfe  is  forced  to  feed  upon 
itself  that  decay  begins.  Activity,  turned 
inward  upon  the  soul,  begets  corrosion. 
There  are  certain  animals,  which,  denied 
their  native  freedom,  will  gnaw  their  own 
bodies.  Let  their  energy  be  pent  up  with- 
in cage  or  pen,  they  will  spend  that  energy 
destroying  themselves.  So  with  a  human 
soul.  Refused  the  normal  channels  of  ex- 
pression, it  burrows  into  itself.  The  life 
prisoner  goes  insane  from  cumulative 
ennui. 

Idlers  are  generally  misanthropes.  To 
have  nothing  to  do  is  the  greatest  curse  of 
mankind.  Dr.  Greer  says:  *T  am  often 
asked  the  question;  I  am  asked  it  every 
week,  sometimes  every  day  in  the  week, 
and  sometimes  a  great  many  times  in  a 
day — How  is  a  young  woman  to  live  to- 
day who  has  to  earn  her  bread  ?  It  is  not 
always  an  easy  question  to  answer.  But 
there  is  another  question  much  harder  to 


An  Imprisoned  Prophet  229 

answer — How  is  a  young  woman  to  live 
to-day  who  does  not  have  to  earn  her 
bread?"  How  is  a  young  man  to  Hve  in 
the  absence  of  great  ambition  and  strong 
activity  ?  How  is  anybody  to  live  worthi- 
ly and  well  without  ceaseless,  passionate 
toil? 

The  papers  tell  of  a  young  man,  a 
Princeton  graduate,  who  was  killed  by 
twelve  hundred  dollars  a  year — and  idle- 
ness. He  had  no  discoverable  bad  habits. 
His  associates  were  good.  But  at  twenty- 
seven  years  of  age  he  found  himself  freed 
from  the  blessed  necessity  of  work.  He 
figured  it  out  that  he  could  live  comfort- 
ably on  his  twelve  hundred  dollars  a  year, 
without  turning  his  hand  to  active  toil. 
But  instead  of  his  living  on  the  money, 
the  money  lived  on  him.  ''Doing  nothing 
is  killing  me,"  he  wrote  to  a  bosom  friend. 
And  shortly  afterward  he  finished  up  the 
job  with  his  own  hand,  and  died  a  suicide. 
The  best  cure  of  ennui  is  action.  He 
whose  hands  are  full  of  holy  duties  will 


230  The  Question  of 

have  small  room  in  his  heart  for  unholy 
doubts.  It  is  the  seasons  of  enforced  or 
self-elected  idleness  that  kill  men. 

Here,  I  believe,  is  the  secret  of  the  pes- 
simism of  old  age.  There  is  something 
very  pitiful,  yet  thoroughly  philosophical, 
about  the  way  old  folks  have  of  grieving 
for  the  "good  old  times."  The  "good  old 
times"  were  the  times  in  which  they  were 
active;  the  times  which  they  helped  to 
make.  Old  people  remember  the  tingle  of 
former  days — days  in  which  it  was  certain 
that  the  procession  was  going  somewhere 
because  they  were  in  the  ranks.  Never 
could  they  doubt  the  issue  of  a  struggle  to 
which  their  own  strength  was  committed. 
By  a  sort  of  sublime,  sweet  egotism  to 
which  no  earnest  soul  is  stranger,  they 
believed  in  the  thing  which  they  were 
doing,  for  this  most  cogent  reason — that 
they  were  doing  it.  Whereas  now  that 
hands  and  feet  are  sorely  disqualified,  and 
they  are  locked  up  in  the  prison  of  old 
age,  like  another  John  the  Baptist  they 


An  Imprisoned  Prophet         231 

begin  to  worry  about  the  ways  of  the 
world  and  to  believe  that  the  best  days  are 
past.  How  could  it  be  otherwise  ?  It  has 
always  been  so.  It  will  be  so  with  us  if 
we  live  to  be  old ;  we,  too,  shall  look  back 
upon  those  days  in  which  we  lived  and 
labored  as  the  Golden  Age  of  Man.  Pa- 
tience with  those  who  are  living  in  the 
past,  and  resolution  to  stay  in  the  ranks 
that  we  may  keep  3^oung  longest,  is  our 
present  duty. 

But  John's  question  involves  certain 
other  considerations.  It  was  based,  in 
part,  upon  a  misapprehension  of  the  facts. 
He  had  not  heard  the  whole  story.  Shut 
away  from  the  busy  world  in  which  Christ 
was  moving,  he  got  only  scraps  of  news. 
It  is  said  that  the  blind  and  deaf  are  near- 
ly always  suspicious.  The  part  of  the 
beauty  they  cannot  appreciate,  the  part  of 
the  narrative  they  fail  to  hear  makes  them 
skeptical  about  the  rest.  All  men  are  more 
or  less  like  that — mystified  by  fragments 
of  the  story ;  confused  by  glimpses  of  the 


232  The  Question  of 

truth;  cynical  concerning  the  portion  of 
the  landscape  which  lies  in  shadow.  It  is 
natural  to  distrust  the  movement  whose 
full  sweep  we  cannot  follow. 

Diminished  chords  are  the  soul  of  fine 
harmony.  But  a  diminished  chord,  stand- 
ing alone,  is  unmusical.  Hear  it  apart 
from  the  chord  from  which  it  was  modu- 
lated and  the  chord  into  which  it  passes, 
and  it  only  offends  the  ear.  But  let  it  be 
struck  in  its  proper  musical  relations  and 
it  is  full  of  richness  and  power.  Here  is 
our  trouble,  often.  Like  John  shut  away 
in  Herod's  prison,  we  cannot  hear  the  full 
harmony  of  events  outside.  Our  ear  is 
offended  by  what  we  hear.  But  could  we 
hear  the  whole,  our  hearts  would  be  full 
of  song.  It  is  the  part  we  miss  which 
makes  us  skeptical  and  sour. 

Here  is  the  philosophy  of  the  old 
proverb  that  the  "eavesdropper  never 
hears  any  good  of  himself."  It  is  not  that 
the  good  is  never  spoken,  but  that  the 
eavesdropper  takes  his  cue  from  a  single 


An  Imprisoned  Prophet         233 

phrase  or  word.  A  part  of  a  sentence  is 
often  utterly  misleading;  the  same  words 
have  totally  different  constructions.  Thus 
no  hearer  is  qualified  to  draw  conclusions 
unless  he  hears  all  that  is  said.  If  he  will 
tarry  at  the  keyhole,  he  must  be  there 
early  and  stay  until  the  whole  interview 
is  through. 

Here  also  is  the  reason  for  the  popular 
distrust  of  certain  great  reforms.  The 
multitude  see  one  aspect  of  the  move- 
ment. They  hear  only  the  violent  words 
of  some  incautious  devotee.  They  are 
offended  by  the  obvious  extravagance  and 
folly.  And  without  waiting  to  balance  the 
facts  they  sit  in  judgment.  It  is  in  the 
political  history  of  the  present  generation 
that  some  of  the  most  vehement  opponents 
of  the  ''free  silver  heresy"  were  themselves 
once  committed  to  its  support.  I  assume 
that  they  were  honest  formerly  and  are 
honest  still.  Their  conduct,  then,  is  sus- 
ceptible of  but  one  interpretation — they 
had  not  formerly  viewed  the  case  in  all  its 


234  The  Question  of 

bearings.  So  I  assert  that  there  are  ar- 
dent Protectionists  who  would  be  Free- 
traders, and  Freetraders  who  would  be 
Protectionists  if  they  understood  all  the 
facts ;  radicals  who  would  be  converted  to 
conservative  standards,  and  vice  versa,  if 
all  the  story  were  told ;  Episcopalians  who 
might  be  Methodists,  and  Methodists  who 
might  turn  into  the  Episcopal  fold,  were 
the  whole  history  of  denominationalism 
at  hand.  Festus  was  wrong  when  he  as- 
sumed that  "much  learning"  would  make 
a  man  ''mad."  It  is  rather  the  ''little 
learning"  that  drives  men  into  intolerance 
and  fury. 

Here,  too,  is  the  root  of  skepticism  in 
religion.  It  is  because  "we  know  in  part, 
and  .  .  .  prophesy  in  part"  that  we  miss 
the  way.  It  is  because  we  "see  through  a 
glass  darkly"  that  we  condemn  the  color 
of  the  skies.  The  book  of  nature  is  mysti- 
fying because  we  can  spell  out  only  a  sen- 
tence here  and  there.  I  have  no  patience 
with  the  doctrine  that  faith  is  better  than 


An  Imprisoned  Prophet  235 

knowledge.  Faith  itself  must  be  ground- 
ed in  knowledge.  Only  as  a  man  plants 
his  feet  upon  facts  can  he  strain  upward 
in  Christian  faith.  Knowledge  is  final 
and  best.  To  ''see  face  to  face,"  and  to 
''know  even  as  also  I  am  known,"  will  be 
Heaven. 

But  there  is  one  more  lesson  for  us  in 
the  Baptist's  question.  Part  depression, 
part  inaction,  part  misunderstanding — 
the  question  is  characteristically  some- 
what more.  It  is  the  cry  of  a  soul  to 
know  if  it  has  failed.  John  had  put  the 
best  years  of  his  life  into  a  preparation  of 
the  Messiah's  path.  Indeed,  he  had  done 
nothing  else.  He  had  been  set  apart  from 
his  birth.  He  had  spared  neither  peril 
nor  pain.  He  had  staked  his  all  upon  the 
issue.  He  had  toiled  with  undoubting 
heart.  And  now  that  active  service  was 
over,  and  he  lay  rotting  in  a  prison,  he 
wanted  to  know  if  he  had  failed.  If  Mes- 
siah had  not  come  John's  years  had  been 
thrown  away.     A  heart's  full  agony  was 


236  The  Question  of 

in  the  question  he  sent  to  Jesus  that  day. 
Trembling,  prayerful,  fearing  almost  to 
hear  the  answer,  he  asked :  "Art  thou  He 
that  should  come,  or  look  we  for  an- 
other?" 

There  are  many  such  experiences  in 
life.  Some  day  a  boy  graduates  from 
college.  He  has  been  looking  forward  to 
that  rare  moment.  For  years  he  has  fed 
his  heart  upon  its  joy.  Hope  has  gilded 
the  horizon  with  brilliant  touches.  But 
graduation  day  comes  and  passes — not 
so  very  different  from  any  other  day — 
and  he  stands  facing  a  busy,  selfish  world. 
Men  do  not  take  off  their  hats  to  admit 
him  to  their  markets.  Even  with  his 
parchment  in  his  hand  he  still  must  fight 
his  way.  God  help  him  in  that  moment 
in  which  he  looks  down  at  his  diploma 
and  asks,  "Is  this  it?  Is  this  what  I  have 
toiled  for  so  many  years?" 

To  love  and  to  be  loved  is  the  precious 
dream  of  young  womanhobd.  Not  scien- 
tific attainment,  or  linguistic  skill,  or  po- 


An  Imprisoned  Prophet         237 

litical  eminence,  but  love,  is  the  glory  of 
womanhood.  Her  best  excellence  grows 
out  of  love. 

"  'Tis  woman's  whole  existence." 
Whatever  else  she  gives  up,  no  true 
woman  ever  gives  up  the  hope  of  being 
royally  loved.  Let  the  day  come  and  her 
heart  find  its  mate.  Let  her  be  faithfully 
loved  and  happily  married.  Will  all  her 
girlhood  dreams  come  true?  (They  might 
oftener  come  true  if  men  were  all  they 
ought  to  be  in  chivalry  and  honor.)  But 
hours  will  come — she  will  keep  them  from 
human  sight  if  she  be  womanly — hours 
in  which,  as  she  sits  gazing  at  her  wed- 
ding ring  or  staring  into  space,  her  heart 
will  cry :  "Is  this  all  of  love?  Did  I  hope 
and  yearn  for  this?" 

Or  take  the  truth  in  its  highest  bearing. 
Some  day  a  man  gives  his  heart  to  God. 
Through  all  the  years  of  wandering  and 
folly  he  never  quite  doubted  that  he  should 
do  it,  sometime.  A  mother's  prayers 
have  been  in  his  ears  again  and  again. 


238  The  Question  of 

He  has  never  been  able  to  forget  alto- 
gether the  home  altar  and  the  big  family 
Bible.  Skeptical  often  and  cynical  some- 
times, he  has  nevertheless  cherished  near 
his  heart  the  hope  of  finding  God.  And 
now  that  at  length  he  has  foimd  Him,  he 
expects  the  whole  world  to  be  changed. 
He  looks  to  see  temptation  disappear;  all 
skies  to  be  kind  and  blue.  He  has  left 
the  old  life  behind.  Yet,  as  he  goes  down 
town  next  morning,  the  stores  and  the 
folks  are  the  same.  God  love  him  as  the 
question  comes  leaping  to  his  lips:  "Is 
this  all  it  is  to  be  a  Christian?" 

How  true  to  human  experience  to-day 
are  the  words  of  John.  How  they  rephrase 
themselves  in  modern  hearts.  We  under- 
stand his  agony  by  our  own.  But  John 
got  his  answer.  His  faith  had  not  been 
misplaced.  His  service  had  not  been 
wasted.  Messiah  had  truly  come.  "Go — 
tell  John,"  was  Jesus'  word  to  John's  dis- 
ciples. "Show  him  again  these  things 
which  ye  do  hear  and  see."     "Blessed  is 


An  Imprisoned  Prophet         239 

he,  whosoever  shall  not  be  offended  in 
me."  The  answer  was,  evidently,  enough. 
Doubt  died  in  John's  heart  that  day.  It 
will  also  die  out  of  ours,  if  we  honestly 
ask  and  honestly  wait  for  answer. 


XII 

THE  QUESTION  OF  A  TROUBLED 
RULER 


16 


This,  it  seems  to  me,  is  the  form  that  our  reli- 
gious life  is  more  and  more  assuming — just  a 
great  inert  overfuilness.  Religion  is  met,  not,  as 
it  was  a  thousand  years  ago,  by  a  man  in  mail 
upon  the  threshold,  with  a  sword  or  an  ax  or  a 
firebrand  to  kill  it  out — the  brutality  of  that  folly 
is  obsolete;  not,  as  it  was  a  hundred  years  ago, 
by  a  cunning  diplomatist  in  the  vestibule  with  wiry 
words  and  smooth-tongued  irony  to  circumvent 
the  newcomer  and  make  even  Religion  herself 
faithless  and  untrue — the  cowardice  of  that  folly  is 
dying  away ;  but  nowadays,  when  the  new  stranger 
comes  up  to  the  door,  the  opposition  is  just  the 
great,  impenetrable,  passive  fullness  of  the  house 
she  tries  to  enter." — Brooks. 

"  'Tis  the  weakness  in  strength  that  I  cry  for !  my 

flesh  that  I  seek 
In  the  Godhead !    I  seek  and  I  find  it.    O  Saul,  it 

shall  be 
A  face  like  my  face  that  receives  thee ;  a  Man  like 

to  me, 
Thou  shalt  love  and  be  loved  by,  forever :  a  Hand 

like  this  hand 
Shall  throw  open  the  gates  of  new  life  to  thee! 

See  the  Christ  stand !" 

— Browning. 

"Whatever  the  surprises  of  the  future  may  be, 
nothing  will  ever  surpass  the  moral  grandeur  of 
Jesus  as  it  shines  and  glows  in  the  canonical  Gos- 
pels."— Renan. 

"God  sent  forth  His  Son,  made  of  a  woman, 
made  under  the  law,  that  He  might  redeem  them 
that  were  under  the  law." — Paul. 


''WHAT  SHALL  I  DO,  THEN, 
WITH  JESUS?'' 

Pilate's  part  in  this  ancient  tragedy 
was,  obviously,  a  most  unwilling  one.  To 
begin  with,  he  had  small  sympathy  with 
the  internal  feuds  and  furies  of  the  Jews. 
He  looked  upon  the  whole  race  as  com- 
mon cattle  who  had  passed  under  the 
Roman  yoke.  How  far  they  chafed  and 
gored  each  other  was  of  no  concern  to 
him  so  long  as  they  wore  the  yoke  and 
thus  served  his  Roman  masters.  In  the 
second  place,  he  could  but  recoil  from  the 
obvious  meanness  of  the  entire  transac- 
tion. Pilate  was  a  fair  man,  as  Roman 
governors  went;  a  man  of  tolerance  and 
kindness.  Moreover,  he  was  in  Palestine 
as  the  administrator  of  that  magnificent 
legal  system  on  which,  as  on  a  broad 
foundation,  our  codes  and  equities  were 
built.  He  desired  no  part  in  a  process 
which,  only  too  evidently,  had  been  con- 
ceived in  malice  and  born  in  crime.  What- 

243 


244  The  Question  of 

ever  local  boundaries  the  Prisoner  had 
transgressed,  He  certainly  was  not  de- 
serving of  the  present  cruelty  and  shame. 

But  Pilate  was  further  deterred  from 
participation  in  the  crime  by  the  bearing 
and  beauty  of  the  Prisoner  Himself.  No 
such  Face  had  ever  looked  up  into  the 
Roman  governor's  before.  Pilate  had 
seen  solidity;  such  majestic  calm  and  re- 
pose he  had  never  seen.  Men  of  innocent 
eyes  and  beautiful  brows  had  sometimes 
stood  before  him.  But  no  such  brow  and 
eyes  as  these.  Cross-examination  only 
confirmed  the  unwillingness  of  Pilate. 
There  was  ''no  fault"  to  find.  Just  then 
came  the  warning  message  from  his  wife. 
Ah,  it  was  Pilate's  better  self  that  cried 
out  before  the  rabble:  "What  shall  I  do, 
then,  with  Jesus?" 

He,  evidently,  did  everything  he  could, 
except  the  one  thing  which  would  have 
satisfied  the  heart  and  conscience  of  mod- 
ern Christendom.  He  openly  declared 
the  injustice  of  the  deed.     He  tried  to 


A  Troubled  Ruler  245 

make  the  Sanhedrin  assume  the  burden  of 
the  crime.  Then,  catching  at  a  techni- 
cality of  local  jurisdiction,  he  sent  the 
Prisoner  to  Herod.  Again  and  again  he 
appealed  to  the  accusers'  sense  of  justice; 
even  going  so  far  as  to  invite  the  popu- 
lace to  take  the  matter  out  of  the  elders' 
hands  by  the  grace  of  executive  pardon. 
And  when  finally,  according  to  John's 
narration,  Pilate  caused  the  unresisting 
Victim  to  be  scourged,  it  was  not  so 
much  in  wantonness  as  in  a  real  compas- 
sion, that  the  poor,  torn  back  and  an- 
guished eyes  might  shame  and  pacify  the 
people. 

I  have  an  honest  pity  for  this  Roman. 
We  have  not  been  quite  fair  or  gener- 
ous toward  Pilate.  Church  history  has 
piled  his  name  with  an  obloquy  he  never 
quite  deserved.  He  has  been  judged  by 
our  greater  light ;  condemned  by  our  finer 
ethics.  Under  ordinary  conditions  Pilate 
would  have  been  a  good  man.  With  even 
the  faintest  encouragement  of  his  more 


246  The  Question  of 

worthy  impulses,  he  might  have  won  an 
immortality  of  praise.  He  wanted  to  do 
well  by  Jesus.  For  a  time  he  stood  in  the 
breach  and  held  the  bloodhounds  of  Juda- 
ism at  bay.  But  he  made  one  terrible 
mistake.  Instead  of  asking  his  question 
of  his  own  heart,  he  asked  it  of  the  peo- 
ple :  "What  shall  I  do,  then,  with  Jesus  ?" 
I  have  selected  the  question,  however, 
not  for  its  local  interest  and  color,  but  as 
a  typical  question  for  all  the  ages.  The 
judgment  hall  in  which  Pilate  uttered 
these  words,  and  later  washed  his  hands, 
cannot  be  certainly  named.  The  city  in 
which  the  tragedy  occurred  has  been  for 
ages  a  ruin.  The  names  of  all  save  a 
few  of  the  leading  actors  in  the  tragedy 
have  passed  from  the  memory  of  man. 
We  cannot  make  pilgrimage  to  Pilate's 
tomb  with  tears  or  curses.  Every  figure 
in  that  tremendous  scene  has  gone — save 
His  who  looked  up  into  Pilate's  face  of 
old.  Renan  once  said,  "Whatever  else 
may  be  taken  from  us  Christ  is  left."  And 


A  Troubled  Ruler  247 

the  question  of  one  man  nineteen  centu- 
ries ago  has  become  the  burning  question 
of  more  human  hearts  than  beat  on  earth 
when  Pilate  asked  it  first.  Had  he  an- 
swered it  aright  we  might  not  even  have 
its  record;  because  he  failed  to  answer  it 
with  honor  we  cannot  escape  its  stress 
and  urgency.  "What  shall  I  do,  then, 
with  Jesus?" 

Have  you  considered  what  it  means 
that,  after  nineteen  centuries  of  change, 
men  still  are  asking  the  selfsame  question. 
I  submit  it  as  a  modern  miracle,  that,  con- 
sidering all  that  has  been  taken  from  us, 
"Christ  is  left."  It  was  the  saying  of  Vol- 
taire that  the  Christianity  of  Jesus  could 
never  survive  the  nineteenth  century. 
About  a  hundred  years  ago  Thomas 
Paine  wrote  at  the  end  of  the  first  part 
of  his  Age  of  Reason:  "I  have  now  gone 
through  the  Bible  as  a  man  would  go 
through  a  wood  with  an  ax  on  his  shoul- 
der. Here  they  lie,  and  the  priests  may, 
if  they  can,  replant  them.     They  may. 


248  The  Question  of 

perhaps,  stick  them  in  the  ground,  but 
they  will  never  make  them  grow."  Mrs. 
Southerland  Orr,  in  her  life  of  Robert 
Browning,  says  that  as  Carlyle  was  one 
day  passing  an  image  of  the  crucifixion, 
he  looked  up  at  the  figure  of  Christ  and 
slowly  muttered :  "Ah,  poor  fellow ;  your 
part  is  played  out!"  Diocletian  received 
a  monument  for  "having  abolished  every- 
where the  superstition  of  Christ."  Only 
the  other  day  a  prominent  citizen  de- 
clared concerning  the  life  and  doctrine  of 
Jesus :  "I  tell  you,  there  is  nothing  in  it." 
Yet  the  fact  is,  that  this  exploded  fiction 
has  more  hold  on  the  heart  of  the  world 
than  at  any  previous  moment.  All  the 
infidelic  thrusts  and  sneers  of  all  the  ages 
have  not  availed  to  choke  down  the  ques- 
tion: "What  shall  I  do,  then,  with 
Jesus?" 

Not  quite  a  half  century  ago  Strauss 
launched  his  famous  "Mythical  Theory." 
According  to  which  theory  no  such  won- 
derful person  as  Jesus  ever  lived  except 


A  Troubled  Ruler  249 

in  the  minds  of  His  apostles.  The  apos- 
tles imagined  Christ.  They  materialized 
Him  out  of  the  star  dust  of  their  Mes- 
sianic hopes  and  training.  So  imbued 
had  they  become  with  the  Old  Testament 
teaching  concerning  the  Messiah  that,  by 
and  by,  they  idealized  a  person  to  meet 
their  own  demands.  Thus  the  Christ  of 
the  canonical  Gospels  was  merely  an  or- 
dinary man,  magnified  by  men's  ador- 
ing love  or  commercial  scheming  into  the 
Eternal  Son  of  God.  For  a  time  it  was 
thought  that  Strauss  had  dealt  Christiani- 
ty a  fatal  blow.  Theologians  went  in 
mourning  many  days.  Unbelief  made 
such  a  bedlam  as  had  not  been  heard  since 
the  Tower  of  Babel  fell.  The  world  had 
lost  its  Christ! 

Yet  before  a  quarter  century  had  passed 
another  scholar  penned  these  words: 
''Whatever  else  may  be  taken  from  us 
Christ  is  left.  It  is  no  use  to  say  that 
the  Christ  revealed  in  the  canonical  Gos- 
pels is  not  histoMcal.     Who  among  His 


250  The  Question  of 

disciples,  or  among  their  converts,  was 
capable  of  inventing,  or  even  of  imagin- 
ing, the  life  and  character  revealed  in  the 
Gospels?"  Thus  skeptic  has  answered 
skeptic  until,  to-day,  there  is  hardly  an 
intelligent  doubter  who  denies  the  his- 
toricity of  Jesus'  Hfe  and  labors.  And 
for  the  average  man  the  Christ  stands 
forth  with  greater  winsomeness  and  per- 
sonal attraction  than  ever  in  ages  past. 

I  know  there  is  a  modern  irreverence 
in  handling  the  data  and  doctrines  of 
Jesus'  life  on  earth.  General  Lew  Wal- 
lace has  thrown  some  added  side  lights 
upon  His  person;  and  Marie  Corelli  has 
undertaken  an  explanation  of  His  mira- 
cles, upon  the  basis  of  certain  admitted 
laws  of  magnetism  and  hypnotics.  Every 
little  while  an  enthusiastic  searcher  comes 
forward  with  a  new  Rosetta  stone  to 
translate  some  part  of  the  marvel  of  Je- 
sus into  the  language  of  common  life. 
Others  like  Sheldon  and  Stead  have  es- 
sayed to  project  the  historic  Christ  into 


A  Troubled  Ruler  251 

the  streets  and  problems  of  our  age. 
Through  all  of  which  this  fact  stands 
forth,  that  the  Son  of  Mary,  whether  or 
not  we  pronounce  Him  Son  of  God,  is 
the  central  figure  in  the  world's  gaze  to- 
day. Jesus  is  in  the  novels  and  the  phi- 
losophies, in  the  sociology  and  in  the 
drama  of  the  age,  simply  because  men 
cannot  speak  from  human  hearts  to  hu- 
man hearts  and  leave  him  out.  And  some 
who  ''came  to  mock  have  remained  to 
pray."  Lew  Wallace  became  a  Christian 
while  writing  his  Ben  Hur.  Marie 
Corelli  came  out  of  the  Catholic  Church, 
but  she  has  found  a  diviner  Christ  than 
the  Churches  have  sometimes  preached. 
Tolstoi  turned  back  from  his  early  infi- 
delity to  find  rest  for  his  heart  and  hope 
for  humanity  in  Jesus  and  the  "Sermon 
on  the  Mount."  Intelligent  study  cannot 
indefinitely  ignore  Him.  Christ  is  in  our 
age  as  He  never  was  in  any  previous  age. 

"The  healing  of  His  seamless  dress 
Is  by  [more]  beds  of  pain," 


252  The  Question  of 

and  in  more  thoroughfares  than  ever. 
And  the  question  of  Pilate  is  aHve  with 
the  intensity  and  passion  of  countless 
earnest  hearts:  "What  shall  I  do,  then, 
with  Jesus?" 

It  is  amazing  how  men  always  come 
back  to  the  question  they  try  to  dodge. 
Pilate  did  not  mean  to  do  anything  with 
Jesus.  He  asked,  only,  to  be  excused 
from  rendering  a  decision.  He  tried  to 
shove  Jesus  off  into  the  custody  of  the 
Sanhedrin;  then,  of  Herod;  and,  finally, 
of  the  people — anything  to  be  rid  of  the 
embarrassment  of  passing  personal  sen- 
tence against  Him.  But  the  authority 
was  in  Pilate's  hands,  and  the  question 
came  home  to  him  for  answer.  Men  may 
juggle  with  great  issues  for  a  time,  but 
the  moment  arrives  in  which  great  issues 
assert  their  claim.  I  remember  how  men 
parried  with  prison  reform  in  England. 
It  is  hardly  possible  to  imagine  the  hor- 
rors of  English  prison  life  in  the 
eighteenth    century.      Englishmen    had 


A  Troubled  Ruler  253 

been  frequently  asked  what  they  ought  to 
do  with  the  English  convict.  But  they 
had  generally  eased  their  consciences  by 
referring  the  whole  matter  to  prison  of- 
ficials and  politicians.  Finally,  however, 
the  question  thrust  home  with  such  angry 
vehemence  that  England  felt  called  upon 
to  answer  it  herself;  and  a  new  era  of 
humanitarianism  had  dawned. 

I  call  to  mind,  also,  how  averse  we  were 
to  interfering  with  child  labor  in  factory 
and  in  shop.  Everybody  knew  it  was 
wrong.  Every  kind  heart  smarted  with 
a  sense  of  its  injustice.  But  everybody 
wanted  everybody  else  to  attend  to  it. 
And  the  result  was  that  taskmasters  con- 
tinued to  drive  little  children  to  the  task, 
until  one  day — please  God  such  righteous 
spasms  may  come  a  little  oftener — men 
took  the  question  up  into  their  hearts  and 
answered  it  like  men. 

Modern  business  method  has  less  and 
less  sympathy  for  the  weaker  member. 
Trade  i?  a  mill  which  often  grinds  the 


254  The  Question  of 

miller  as  fine  as  his  flour.  Count,  if  you 
will,  the  merchants  who  have  been  driven 
out  of  a  comfortable  business  by  the  piti- 
less whip  of  the  'Trust."  Make  tally  of 
the  salesmen  and  superintendents,  once 
earning  a  generous  wage,  who  would  be 
grateful  to-day  for  an  income  of  five  hun- 
dred or  a  thousand  dollars  a  year.  So 
the  crowding  process  goes  on.  But  the 
question  of  responsibility  will  not  down. 
It  keeps  crying  in  the  ears  of  men.  And 
it  will  continue  to  cry  until  we  answer  it 
with  honor :  ''What  shall  I  do,  then,  with 
the  weaker  member?" 

So  with  respect  to  any  fine  talent  or 
gracious  opportunity  or  sacred  trust,  the 
question  comes  ever  again:  "What  shall 
I  do  with  it?"  We  cannot  be  always 
dodging.  Shifted  responsibility  comes 
home  at  last.  I  recall  the  story  of  an  in- 
grate,  who  in  the  years  of  his  prosperity 
turned  his  own  mother  from  his  door; 
but  who  found  her  one  morning  upon  his 
doorstep,  dead.     Driven  away,  she  had 


A  Troubled  Ruler  255 

come  back  to  die  within  sound  of  his  voice. 
You  remember  the  cry  of  Ahab  when  the 
long-abused  prophet  came,  "Hast  thou 
found  me,  O,  mine  enemy?"  He  who 
dodges  issues  feels  always  hounded.  No 
soul  can  travel  far  or  fast  enough  to  get 
away  from  duty.  Sometime  in  the  dark- 
ness or  in  the  day  it  will  appear.  This  is 
God's  world,  and  His  agents  work  cease- 
lessly to  make  men  do  their  duty.  Soon 
or  late  we  must  render  our  decision  con- 
cerning every  pressing  claim. 

So  with  men's  attitude  toward  Christ. 
No  Herod  can  ever  take  Him  off  their 
hands.  In  certain  famous  murder  trials 
the  question  of  legal  jurisdiction  has  been 
warmly  debated — one  county  seeking  to 
shift  to  another  the  burden  of  notoriety 
and  expense.  There  can  be  no  such  ques- 
tion concerning  this  Prisoner.  Jesus  is 
on  trial  in  the  court  of  every  heart.  With 
the  same  look  as  that  which  He  lifted  to 
the  despairing  Pilate's  face;  with  the 
same  silent  majesty  as  won  that  Roman 


256  The  Question  of 

governor's  praise;  with  the  same  appeal- 
ing goodness  as  challenged  every  noble 
impulse  of  His  judge's  nature,  Jesus 
stands  before  men  to-day.  "There  is  but 
one  question  of  the  day,"  said  Gladstone 
a  few  years  before  his  death,  "and  that 
is  the  Gospel."  No  soul  can  have  a  duty 
ahead  of  its  duty  to  do  something  with 
Jesus.  Everything  else  can  afford  to  wait 
on  that.  "What  shall  I  do  .  .  .  with 
Jesus?" 

Men  say  they  have  not  time.  Not  time 
for  what?  Not  time  to  take  one's  bear- 
ings by  the  star  of  Bethlehem  ?  Not  time 
to  lubricate  the  axles  before  starting  on  a 
journey?  Not  time  to  be  fed  with  the 
heart's  own  bread?  Not  time  to  let  in 
the  light?  Time  for  everything  except 
that  which  is  most  vital  and  eternal  ?  For 
shame!  The  most  fruitful  time  a  man 
ever  spends  is  the  time  he  spends  in  get- 
ting right  with  Ck)d — answering  the  ques- 
tion which  Pilate  tried  to  dodge:  "What 
shall  I  do  .  .  .  with  Jesus?" 


A  Troubled  Ruler  257 

Before  I  suggest  the  answer  I  want  to 
note  one  thing  more  about  Pilate's  ques- 
tion— the  significance  of  a  single  word  in 
its  phraseology.  "What  shall  I  do,  then?" 
"Then"  is  resultant.  It  refers  to  some- 
thing already  done.  In  view  of  what  Pi- 
late had  promised  concerning  Barabbas, 
what  was  he  to  "do  with  Jesus?"  How 
earnestly  Pilate  wished  the  populace  had 
demanded  this  gracious  Prisoner.  It  was 
in  the  hope  of  such  a  choice  that  he  had 
made  the  offer.  He  could  not  believe  that 
those  who  had  seen  this  Prisoner's  life, 
and  fed  upon  His  bounty,  would  chose 
Barabbas  over  Jesus.  Yet  so  they  had 
chosen,  and  there  was  utter  desperation  in 
Pilate's  voice  as  he  asked  the  immortal 
question :  "What  shall  I  do,  f/^m''— after 
the  choice  of  outlawry  in  preference  to 
goodness — "What  shall  I  do,  then,  with 
Jesus?"  Pilate,  alas,  was  not  free.  He 
had  permitted  his  own  hands  to  be  tied. 
And  he  came  to  the  decision  concerning 
Jesus,  mortgaged  by  a  previous  mistake, 
17 


258  The  Question  of 

unable  to  do  what  his  heart  was  prompt- 
ing for  the  Christ. 

How  true  all  this  is  to  life.  We  spend 
our  "money  for  that  which  is  not  bread," 
and  then  go  hungry  for  the  bread  our 
money  would  have  brought.  We  miss 
the  strategic  point  of  opportunity,  and 
then  limp  through  life  complaining  that 
we  never  had  half  a  chance.  We  mort- 
gage our  hearts,  and  then  are  grieved 
that  we  cannot  give  clear  title.  How 
many  men  are  poor,  not  from  any  nig- 
gardliness of  Heaven,  but  as  the  result 
of  their  own  improvidence  and  folly.  "If 
I  only  had  the  hundreds  I  wasted  when  a 
boy,"  cries  the  clerk  in  Wanamaker's  or 
Marshall  Fields'!  "If  I  only  had  not 
wasted  my  privileges  and  despised  my 
birthright,"  sighs  the  might-have-been 
Edison  or  Paderewski.  "If  I  only  had 
not  soiled  my  heart  with  licentiousness 
and  shame,"  moans  the  libertine  in  the 
presence  of  holy  womanhood.  Alas,  that 
men  so  often  cut  the  roots  which  would 


A  Troubled  Ruler  259 

bear  fruit  in  after  years !  Alas,  that  they 
should  be  forever  crippling  themselves 
for  future  usefulness  and  conquest! 

Samson  chose  a  v^oman's  favor  and 
found  himself  helpless  against  the  Philis- 
tines v^hen  they  came.  David  chose  car- 
nage and  was  denied  the  most  sacred  priv- 
ilege of  building  a  temple  to  his  God. 
Peter  chose  self-preservation,  and  had  to 
be  refined  through  a  long  process  of  re- 
pentance before  he  could  feed  the  flock 
of  Christ.  Julius  Caesar  chose  prefer- 
ment, and  died  by  the  hand  of  the  men 
who  might  have  been  his  friends.  Napo- 
leon chose  empire,  and  was  beaten  at 
Waterloo.  Webster  chose  popularity, 
and  went  away  from  earth  with  the  con- 
sciousness of  having  failed.  These,  all, 
came  to  the  supreme  test,  handicapped. 

And  so  men  come  to  Christ.  A  previous 
choice  disqualifies  them.  They  stand  in 
the  presence  of  Jesus,  wishing,  like  Pi- 
late, to  do  the  noble  thing,  but  swept  on- 
ward past  their  wishes  by  the  stern  logic 


260  The  Question  of 

of  a  former  decision.  Some  lower  choice, 
some  choice  of  wealth  or  ease  or  popu- 
larity, prevents  them  from  making  the 
highest  choice  of  all.  The  seed  divine  has 
to  germinate  in  a  soil  already  choked. 
What  can  a  man  "do  with  Jesus,"  so  long 
as  he  holds  allegiance  to  some  other  king 
of  life? 

I  will  tell  you  what  he  can  do.  He  can 
do  the  thing  which  the  great  majority  is 
doing — send  Jesus  to  His  cross.  Jesus 
stands  for  the  ideal  in  human  life.  And 
every  time  a  man  turns  his  back  upon  the 
ideal  of  manhood  he  assists  in  a  fresh 
crucifixion.  No  wonder  it  is  so  hard  to 
touch  certain  hearts,  "seeing  they  crucify 
to  themselves  the  Son  of  God  afresh." 
Then,  there  is  another  thing  that  the  mod- 
ern Pilate  can  do  with  Jesus.  He  can 
pass  compliments  about  Him.  David 
Strauss,  who  labored  so  diligently  for  the 
destruction  of  Christian  faith,  admitted 
that  Jesus  was  "the  highest  model  of  re- 
ligion."     The    great    French    agnostic, 


A  Troubled  Ruler  261 

whose  Life  of  Jesus  was  called  a  thun- 
derbolt to  Christianity,  declared  that  ''Je- 
sus will  never  be  surpassed."  There  are 
more  compliments  for  Christ  to-day  than 
ever.  But  frozen  politeness  may  barb  the 
most  perfect  diabolism  of  spirit.  It  is  no 
particular  virtue  to  admit  the  sweetness 
of  the  rose  or  the  glory  of  the  stars. 
"Why  call  ye  me  Lord  .  .  .  and  do  not 
the  things  which  I  say?" 

There  is  one  other  thing  for  a  man  to 
do  with  Jesus — which  Pilate  did  not  do. 
He  can  enthrone  Christ  as  the  Master  of 
his  life. 

"If  Jesus  Christ  is  a  man — 

And  only  a  man — I  say, 
That  of  all  mankind  I  will  cleave  to  Him, 

And  to  Him  will  I  cleave  alway. 

"If  Jesus  Christ  is  a  God — 

And  the  only  God — I  swear, 
I  will  follow  him,  through  heaven  and  hell, 

The  earth,  the  sea,  and  the  air." 


Princeton 


lifil 

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